


now or never

by thedeadleaves



Series: little player, big ace [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Abandonment, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Moving On, Multi, Original Character(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Starting Over, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 64,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25893391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedeadleaves/pseuds/thedeadleaves
Summary: How Kent Parson adapted to Las Vegas, made a new best friend, and maybe learned to carve a life for himself after Jack Zimmermann.or; Snapshots of Kent's rookie year with the Aces and his emotional journey throughout.
Relationships: (past), Alexei "Tater" Mashkov/Kent "Parse" Parson, Kent "Parse" Parson & Jeff "Swoops" Troy, Kent "Parse" Parson & Kent Parson's Cat, Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Series: little player, big ace [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878928
Comments: 69
Kudos: 104





	1. cotton

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of Kent carving out a life for himself in Vegas and trying to move on from Jack Zimmermann in the process. I think the ultimate ship is Kent/Happiness so while this story will focus on the beginnings of the great romance between Parse and Tater, it will be more about emotional healing and rebuilding.

**August 2009**

The first time Kent stepped out of the Las Vegas airport runway, he felt himself shiver—partly because the desert was cold at night and partly because he was nervous as all hell. The tall skyscrapers looked like they were brushing against the sky, mocking him with their height. He never felt smaller, more hopeless. He wanted to tear down everything around him. 

Last night he dreamt of the ice rink and skating with Jack but when he woke up bile rose in his throat. Each dream felt so perfect, a lovely flower amid a field of dying grass. The dreams played in his mind, like a tape on rewind, and he soaked in sunlight and happiness as if it never rained or snowed. Kent wanted to protect those dreams, wanted to fucking push a button that would put some kind of impenetrable forcefield over it, wanted to bottle them up into glass jars and store them in a safe bank somewhere. But he knew he was powerless. How could he fight against reality? The more he fought, the more drained he felt. Now he could barely think of the Q, of _Jack,_ without his throat closing up. Each dream felt like a wonderful piece of art, something he couldn’t create even in a million lifetimes. But they faded away eventually.

They all did. 

He wondered if the glimmering towers of steel in the distance would crumble in his lifetime. 

His vet and new roommate—Jeff ‘Swoops’ Troy—had looked like he was about to crumble. Swoops had looked like absolute shit, when he greeted Kent, with his dark circles and slightly bloodshot eyes. So it made sense that he brought along another teammate to drive them both back. Xavier Coleman, who 0nly responded to Scrappy, was driving and Kent felt mildly worried because his turns were extra sharp. 

Still, Kent’s concern over whether or not he would come out of the car ride alive did not distract him from thinking about how he could have done _something_ to keep Jack from falling apart. 

In the thirty four days between winning the Memorial Cup and the draft, Jack went fucking _hard_ with all the partying. Kent had thought it was okay because they just won a big ass trophy and were going to go into the NHL soon. He had brushed off Jack’s perpetual state of stress as regular nerves. If Jack only loosened up after a few drinks, Kent had thought it was because he was extra worried about the draft.

(A part of him also didn't want to address it because Jack’s behavior reminded Kent of his dad’s—right before Benjamin Parson walked out on his wife, kids and elderly father. But that was neither here nor there.)

So Kent hadn’t said anything other than the occasional, “Hey, take it slow. You’ve had a lot of drinks.” 

He had told Jack that he didn’t mind going second. The New York Islanders were from home and his family would still be in the area. It was better for Kent to go second, even if he hadn’t—still didn’t—fancy the idea of being thousands of miles away from Jack. Whenever Kent dreamed of his life, Jack was _always_ in it. Every damn fucking step of the way. Even though they would have been on different sides of the country, Jack would have still floated in the same atmosphere. It was like they were bound to each other—subject to the same gravitational pull. 

Jack would have always been in his orbit. 

Except, _now,_ he wasn’t. 

Kent had not known about Jack’s pill problem. Not one bit. Jack had always been nervous and he failed to pass off that nervousness as stoicism to only those who didn’t know him. But Chloé pointed out her brother had _always_ been like that and Bob seemed to agree with her. Who was Kent to question Jack’s family members? They had lived with Jack longer than he had. 

So when Jack had confessed to Kent that he took anxiety meds, after a long session of fucking in Jack’s bedroom while Bob and Alicia were away, Kent hadn’t thought it was a big deal. Jack was a teenager—he couldn’t have gotten those drugs unless they were prescribed and unless they helped him. In the days leading up to the draft, Jack had popped more pills than usual but Kent hadn’t said anything because he wasn’t a fucking pharmacist. 

At the time, in their social circle, anxiety medication hardly seemed to be a topic worth worrying about. Rowdy teenagers—living away from their parents for the first time—regularly mixed opioids with soft drinks at parties or took ecstasy minutes before hitting the clubs. It wasn’t a big deal that Jack had needed something to sooth his fear about the impending draft. 

The draft _was_ a big fucking deal. It was supposed to shape the future of their hockey careers and decide how history would immortalize them. Why wouldn’t Jack have been nervous about it? 

_Hockey Prince or Product of Nepotism._

That’s what the sports tabloids had speculated about Jack. _Still_ speculated. 

Damn, those fuckers loved to eat shit up when it came to Kent and Jack. The Dynamic Duo. The Scrappy All-American fighter vs. Canada’s Hockey Royalty. EPSN commentators loved to speculate if Kent would knock Jack off from the top or if Jack would remain there, steadfast. 

The Underdog clawing his way to where the Prince lived and casting him from his tower. 

Kent thought he knew better though. Thought they were above that gossip. 

Somehow they always had their own language. Knocking helmets together and sharing goofy smiles, bumping shoulders on the way to the locker room, giving sly looks whenever their sisters were around, throwing his arm around taller, broader shoulders, tangling their feet together under the table.

After the draft, he had gone to speak to Jack and been promptly told to get out. Maybe it would have been better if Kent hadn’t ever gotten himself involved with Jack. Maybe then Jack wouldn’t have seized and convulsed on that tile floor because Kent going first was unbearable—because _Kent_ was unbearable. 

It tore at him no matter where he was because of the constant reminders that Jack left him behind. Or maybe he left Jack behind? Would it have been better if he hadn’t gone to the draft? He would never know. 

The only thing he was sure of right now was that the Zimmermanns—sans Chloé—left him behind. They were fucking done with him.

It shouldn’t matter anymore because he was miles away from them. In Vegas.

But it did. It fucking mattered. 

“The weather in this city is shit,” Swoops commented from the passenger seat. He looked at Kent through the rearview mirror. “You’re from New England, too, right?” 

Kent nodded. 

“Yeah—prepare yourself for fucking nosebleeds and buy some good eyedrops. Stock up on that shit. Or else you’ll end up with eyes that belong to a hooker. Red and bleeding.”

“Is that how your eyes are so red?” 

Swoops laughed, “Nah. I’m just fucking hungover. Shit happens in Vegas.” 

By all accounts, he should have loved the idea of living in Sin City. Any other eighteen year old would have been shitting his pants at the chance to be here and especially away from his parents. The media sure thought he loved it. He knew what they called him, ‘Party Boy Parson’ who loved to get around and celebrate with drugs, booze and strippers, even when he had been too broke to indulge in all that hedonism. They also thought, now he had gone first, that he would party his way into rehab, just like Jack. 

Kent wasn’t any eighteen-year-old, though. His former best friend and boyfriend was in a rehabilitation center because he overdosed, because death was preferable to Kent going first. His boyfriend’s parents were now ignoring him and his own parents were so fucking far away. As he thought about his mom’s arms around his shoulders, his sister’s cheeky smile as she cracked a joke, and his stepdad’s loud voice calling him a ‘dumbass’, he regretted convincing his family to go help Liv settle in at Columbia instead. What he would have given for Mom to be here. 

At least the state of post-breakup would be more bearable if his family was still here. Jack hadn’t exactly ended it with Kent in explicit words per say but, seeing as he kicked Kent out of the hospital room and refused to return his calls, it seemed likely their relationship was over. 

Swoops’ voice broke through the silence, “Kid—you want ice cream?” 

“‘Kid’?” Kent chirped. “You still look prepubescent.” 

Scrappy laughed in the front and hollered, “He ain’t wrong, now, Swoops.” 

_“Aye!”_ Swoops protested, “You’re the one who can’t grow a playoff beard—”

“I so _can!”_

“It’s patchy as shit, motherfucker. Looks like a dehydrated lawn.” 

“I will crash this fucking car,” Scrappy threatened, with too much cheer. “I will crash this car and feel no regrets. If I die first, I’ll save you both a place in hell.” 

Swoops just snorted, “Fine then. But you aren’t getting any of this ice cream. _Here,_ kid.” 

Just then Swoops turned around and handed Kent an open tub of half-melted birthday cake ice cream from Thrifty’s. There was a spoon stuck in the confection and some of it had been eaten. 

“Who the fuck eats their birthday cake ice cream?” Kent asked incredulously. He was mildly offended. “Their best flavor is malted chocolate—you have no _taste.”_

He dug into the tub regardless and ate, savoring the feeling of finally having _something_ in his stomach. On the flight to Vegas, he had been too preoccupied with biting his nails down to their beds to eat any of the crappy airplane food.

“I hear you complaining but see you eating,” Swoops called out, smirking in the mirror. 

Kent stuck his tongue out. 

Scrappy laughed. “I like you, Parser—” 

At that, both Swoops and Kent simultaneously asked, “Parser?” with exasperation. 

“You couldn’t have thought of something more original? It makes me sound like ‘parsley’. I fucking _hate_ parsley.” Kent demanded angrily and slumped into the leather seat of the car. The AC was on full-blast and he stuck the tub in front of the vent, so that the ice cream would stop melting. He didn’t want to dirty the car on the first day. 

“I _could_ call you, Parsley.” Scrappy sing-songed, whistling happily to the Rihanna that played on the radio. 

Kent grumbled, “ … Nevermind. Parser works.”

“Okay, Parser. You want to know your first assignment as a rookie?”

“Not really but I don’t have a choice, do I?” He asked with heavy resignation. 

“Nope. I need you to be the biggest pain in Swoops’ ass. Can you do that?” Scrappy turned around to look at Kent and nearly hit into another car. Kent and Swoops both held onto their seats as Scrappy narrowly avoided getting into an accident and actually making good on his promise to get them all killed in a fiery wreck.

Swoops yelled, his voice an octave higher than usual. “WATCH OUT!” 

“Whoops—” Scrappy stuck his head out the window and yelled at the driver in the lane next to them, “Sorry, buddy— _hey!_ No need to flip me off.” Scrappy made an aggravated noise. “That’s fucking rude, man! Don’t be a pussy! I didn’t _hit_ you—oh is that how it’s going to be—” He switched lanes without warning and cut the other guy off. “Kiss my ass!”

When Scrappy almost crashed into a pole, Kent pulled out his phone and began to frantically call his mother. There were last words that needed to be exchanged. “Mom? Just know that I love you— _fuck, watch out!”_

And that’s how they ended up pulling over at the next curb.

Mom picked up the phone and, when Kent explained the situation to her, demanded to speak to Scrappy. Scrappy made the mistake of putting her on speaker phone as she berated him for putting Kent in danger in half English and half Spanish. 

“ _El burro sabe mas que tu_!” was thrown in a few times which made Kent laugh. 

Since Swoops was too hungover and Scrappy seemed to be a likely candidate for severe road rage, Kent volunteered (read: demanded) to drive in Scrappy’s place—no license be _damned_. 

* * *

On the drive back to Swoops’ apartment, Kent saw more of Vegas—glimpses of the tacky wedding chapels and dancers with their faces painted and even young girls lined the streets offering men their wildest fantasies. His eyes flickered to the side, where Swoops tapped his fingers against the center console, and then to the rearview mirror where Scrappy was steadily drooling onto the window. _Gross._ Somehow he could not shake the inexplicable suspicion that his teammates were extra props to the lie that was Vegas. 

None of this could be fucking real.

All that happened in the last few months was a fucking nightmare—a nightmare he just stumbled through. Walking across the stage on draft day, signing his contract with the team, saying goodbye to his family, getting on the plane to Vegas, and now driving to the home of his fucking _teammate_ who was taller than a skyscraper. It was all some sort of stimulated virtual reality shenanigan. It just _had_ to be. 

(Except it wasn’t. It was as real as Jack ignoring his calls. It was as real as seeing the empty pill bottle on the sink. It was as real as seeing Jack seizing and seizing. It was as real as his seeing the love of his life being put on a stretcher. It was as real as the dark bruises under Jack’s eyes and the IV attached to Jack’s arms and the _beep, beep, beep_ of the hospital—) 

He was going to live in a city built on dangerous possibilities. Trapeze artists who wore nice costumes and entertained crowds while they endangered themselves on high tightropes. Casinos that fooled locals and tourists alike into thinking they could hit the jackpot if they kept playing, but only served to fuel an unhealthy addiction. Kent wasn’t a literature major—that was Liv’s little niche—but he could recognize a metaphor when he saw one. 

How much of his youth had been sacrificed for this— _would_ be sacrificed for this? How many nights had he lay awake in his billet parents’ home thinking he should just quit? How many tears were shed over the phone, back in the Q? How much money had his parents spent—Leo taking extra shifts down at the firestation, Mom pawning her old jewelry—so he could have equipment? Was it all a fucking joke? 

Kent wanted to cry.

A voice cut through the deafening silence. 

“Pull up here,” Swoops commanded, pointing towards a condo complex in a swanky area. The type of area Kent ever saw in the movies or when he visited the Zimmermann’s home. “Okay, right there—” Kent pulled into a parking lot and looked to Swoops for further instruction, “Damn, your parking job’s a lot better than Scrappy’s is.” 

Scrappy muttered, finally waking up from his nap. “I heard that you asshole.” 

“But you couldn’t ignore when the other driver flipped you off,” Swoops mumbled under his breath and shot Kent an annoyed look surreptitiously. 

Scrappy promptly flipped them off. 

Somehow when his teammates were pulling his luggage out of the trunk—it wasn’t much because he decided only to bring the most important sentimental items, all else could be purchased later—their light-hearted conversation turned into an argument about who could carry the trunks up to Swoops’ apartment faster. That led to Kent jogging behind Scrappy, who ran like a mad man down the apartment complex’s hallways with a suitcase above his head, and wondering what the hell had he signed up for. 

Scrappy made it to the door that clearly belonged to Swoops and bellowed loudly, “I fucking won! Kiss my ass, suckers!” 

To Kent’s mild irritation, Swoops grabbed one of the suitcases—which contained his limited edition _signed_ Britney Spears album, an autograph from Mariah Carey, and a first edition poster of Destiny’s Child—and swung it at Scrappy’s knees causing the latter to whine loudly in pain. 

“Fuck you man,” Swoops chuckled and pushed the rest of the luggage towards Scrappy. Before Kent could make a move to help the man up, Swoops grabbed him by the sleeve and pulled him into the penthouse, leaving Scrappy to handle the rest of the luggage. 

It was a _damn_ _nice_ penthouse—the type of bachelor pad that made teenage boys hard just thinking about it. There were glass windows with white window panes all around, illuminating the apartment with the fading sunlight. The tiles floors were heated, if the lack of numbness in his toes was any indication, and the living room was tastefully decorated. If Kent was the person ESPN thought he was, he would have been formulating ways to impress chicks with his digs. Except he didn’t want just _any_ girl—or girls in general—he wanted _Jack._

“Dude, you watch _Gossip Girl_?” Kent asked incredulously when he saw what the TV screen was playing. 

Swoops crossed his arms over his chest defensively and harrumphed. “Yes, I _do_ .” Kent opened his mouth to chirp but Swoops swiftly cut in, “Don’t fucking judge me, rookie—you were the one who started playing Destiny’s Child in _my_ car.” 

“I resent that,” Kent fumed, forgetting himself momentarily. “Destiny’s Child is _iconic_ —” 

Scrappy announced his presence by dropping Kent’s luggage at his feet and saying loudly, “Don’t even bother with him. He can’t appreciate 90s girl groups. Didn’t even know who Ginger Spice was—”

“What the fuck?” Kent asked. 

“—All he listens to is oldies music—”

“If you make one more comment about the Beatles,” Swoops threatened lightly. “I’ll tell your mother you contracted _three_ STDs this year—” 

“Bro, she’s not gonna fucking believe you—” 

“Your _other_ mother, dipshit.” 

“My mothers raised me to be a good boy,” Scrappy sniffed. “I don’t do that hookup shit, you do.” 

“Uh huh.”

 _That_ caused both of Kent’s eyebrows to raise. 

“You have two moms?” Kent asked as lightly as he could. Growing up in hockey hadn’t exposed him to many LGBT couples—besides him and Jack—and the thought of a player openly admitting they had two moms seemed as foreign as a unicorn frolicking in the snow. Still, he fronted to appear casual. 

Scrappy shrugged, clearly attempting to be nonchalant about it, though the hard glint in his dark eyes gave him away. “Yeah, what about it?” 

Kent’s brain wracked for a way to diffuse the situation without being too effusive or mushy about it. 

“So, if you have _two_ moms…” Kent began slowly, giving Scrappy a mischievous side-long look, “Why are you such an ass?” 

“Fuck you!” 

Swoops drawled from where he sat at the kitchen island, “Because in his mothers’ eyes, he can do no wrong—” Swoops began to imitate baby talk, “‘My sweet babyboy is a hockey player. I’m so proud of you. Mwah, mwah, mwah’.”

“He’s only this bitter because his mother never lets him forget he’s a college drop out,” Scrappy supplied, sidling up to Kent and nudging him with his elbow. “She’s a big college professor and he’s a dumbass.” 

“At least I’m not the one who sent that dickpic to my own cousin—” Swoops called out from the fridge where he was rummaging through for a few ingredients. 

Scrappy yelled, “ _Dude!_ You promised _never_ to tell anyone!” 

“Parser will keep your naughty little secret,” Swoops announced with utter seriousness before fucking _winking_ at Kent. 

Kent glanced at Scrappy with wide eyes, “You did _what_?” 

“It—it’s—” Scrappy sighed, running his hand along his curly hair to find an explanation to a situation that _definitely_ required it. Instead he settled for fidgeting from embarrassment and muttering lamely, “I have two Cassies in my phone— _alright?”_

Even in the dim light of the living room, Kent could see the bright red on Scrappy’s dark umber cheeks. 

“Didja tell the rookie you told your moms the reason why your cousin couldn’t come to Thanksgiving dinner that year was because she got HPV from accidentally wearing someone else’s underwear?” Swoops said, waving his hand that had a frying pan in it. “That’s the worst fucking excuse you could ever give.”

“I panicked, okay!” Scrappy paled instantly and his eyes widened to an impossibly large size. His eyes flickered between Kent and Swoops before he regained composure and began to stalk towards the island. “Don’t you tell my mama shit.” Scrappy leaned across the marble countertop and craned his head so it was close to Swoops—who to his credit was simply washing some green bell peppers. “Unless you want me calling your granny and texting her a picture of that hickey you got when the girl _bit_ you—” 

Kent whirled around and narrowed in on Swoops’ neck. It was partly hidden from where Swoops’ head bent down to chop ingredients but there was definitely a distinct bite mark, with a large purple bruise blossoming on his jugular, that could be made out. The fact that Swoops’ skin was a deep coppery bronze helped mask it though. “She _bit_ you?”

“Don’t even fucking ask. Hockey bunnies be crazy, kiddo.” Swoops sighed a mother of all sighs. “You can sleep with ‘em but don’t bring them back here unless you want—” he pulled down his shirt to reveal another bite mark on his collar, “— _this_ happening to you.” 

“I think you just need to find better girls to sleep with,” Kent suggested. 

Scrappy laughed uproariously at that and gave Kent a fistbump. “I like you, rookie. Make sure to mock Swoops everyday or else his ego will—” Scrappy made a gesture that was reminiscent of a hot air balloon inflating, “—y’know?” 

Kent looked at Swoops and laughed, even if he wasn’t particularly sincere in it, “Oh, I doubt I’ll have to struggle to find chirping material with those bite marks on him.” 

Scrappy went up to him and swung his arm around Kent’s shoulders which made Kent feel twice as small. The man had at least forty pounds on him. “Hear that Julia Child?” Swoops donned an apron and looked like a fifties housewife getting dinner ready for her four beautiful children, “Better hope your bite marks don’t get infected!” 

“Better hope your dinner isn’t poisoned, fucker.” He turned to Kent. “I’m making food. You didn’t eat yet, right?” Swoops gave Kent a knowing look and gestured towards the direction of the hallway. “Your room’s the last one on the right. Go unpack and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.” He winced. “That sounded less suburban-mom in my head.”

Kent ended up nodding dumbly, mostly because he was reminded of his own mother right when Swoops put on the apron and gave him a look of fond exasperation. He felt a moment of internal turmoil. He thought sharply: _don’t do this now, you just met them_. He could not reveal his emotions—not when it was his first night in Vegas and he was not sure how genuine his teammates were. They were the only ones he met so far and were the gateway to making his life heaven or hell. Worse, they could be the people who tipped off to Aces management that he was not cut out to be in the NHL. Kent was nothing if not methodical about how others perceived him—at least now he was—so he made his best attempt at cracking a joke about Swoops’ mothering and very pointedly avoided any further eye contact as he grabbed his luggage.

* * *

For five minutes, instead of unpacking, Kent stared at his crappy Nokia for messages from Jack. His thumb wavered over Jack’s name. He wanted to call and say that he would give it all up so Jack could be happy and well, not in some shitty rehab center. He wanted to erase the nightmares that plagued him at night, the sight of seeing Jack seize as he overdosed. Lately, whenever his mother had asked if he slept well, he lied. He had trouble sleeping at night. He spent so much time wondering if Jack would have ever woken up in the hospital that the thought of going unconscious for a night terrified him now. So, he would lay awake on his bed, staring up at his ceiling because he didn’t know _what_ to do but move forward without Jack.

There was a tightness in his throat—a particularly ugly one that formed whenever he felt the urge to cry and gulp for breath. When he willed it to go away, it refused to budge. 

“I _would_ give it all up,” Kent whispered desperately in his empty room. 

But no one heard him. The same way Jack (and now Bob and Alicia) hadn’t heard his voicemails. The last time he had spoken to any Zimmermann was in the hospital the day after the draft Jack had told him to get the fuck out and Kent ran into Chloé. Jack’s sister had just looked at him with those large eyes—too pretty to be swollen from crying and red from sleep deprivation—and began to bawl into his shoulder. She had muttered something about Jack not wanting to see her too and how “Mom and Dad have a place picked out to ship Jack off to.”

That was the last update Kent received about Jack’s condition: that he was going to rehab. 

Once it became clear that Chloé didn’t know shit about what was happening—her parents forever shielded her from anything that might be mildly upsetting, as if she hadn’t been the one to dial 911—Kent had tried to call Bob and Alicia for updates. But they never picked up; he had tried to leave messages but they went unresponded too.

If he began to sway, it was because he felt like something was drilling into his temples. It was like someone decided something very precious was inside his brain and was slowly but steadily trying to get it out by scraping away at his insides. Kent grit his teeth and tried to avoid thinking about anything. 

But really, the realization that his voicemails—that the years he spent with the Zimmermanns—amounted to _nothing_ was impossible to push away. He _knew_ from Liv, who was going to be Chloé’s roommate at Columbia, that the Zimmermanns hadn’t cut off all contact from the outside world. The silence was _deliberate_ because he _knew_ they saw his name flash across their screens and the notifications from his messages but refused to have anything to do with him. 

The urge to call his parents and cry ugly tears over the phone slowly crept into him. His fingers twitched to hear his mother’s soothing voice but then again hadn’t the Zimmermanns, who had been his surrogate parents, make the conscious decision to ignore him? What if his _real_ parents were like that too? Fair-weather family. 

Family who were only proud of him because he finally signed a contract to help with Leo’s medical bills from all the years of firefighting, to contribute to Liv’s ever amounting college tuition, to give them a reason to talk about hockey without the edge of burden in their voice. What if they just wanted him around to benefit them? What if they would as easily cut him off as the Zimmermanns had if they found out how fucked up he was? How he didn’t have a thing for Jack’s little sister but for Jack himself like they thought? 

Robotically, he forced himself to unpack. Some of the memorabilia was odd to keep—an old stuffed lion Grandpa Joe gave him, extra strength hair gel Leo _swore_ by, a stack of handwritten recipes from his abuelita—but he pushed them aside to pull out his clothes. There was a pile of new clothing—Liv and Mom insisted on going shopping before they left but he knew it was secretly an excuse for them to try to stuff him into suits (a good move because he never wanted to wear his one from the draft again)—but there were some well worn, older pieces. Denim jeans frayed at the knees, printed tees that split along the arms, old snapbacks from basketball games Leo liked to go to. 

Impulsively, Kent dumped his suitcase out on his bed and began to rifle through the pile. Abuelita Elena would have shrieked her godly fury at the mess he was creating (“Do you have no sense? You leave my house and forget how to pick up after yourself?” she would say) but he didn’t give a damn. 

He pushed the irrational fear inside away and began to methodically sort through his shirts. A part of him wanted to shove them haphazardly into the drawers but he was hyperconscious that wrinkled clothes would add to his already negative PR-image. Once upon a time, he would have worn them because his mother had not finished her teaching degree yet and they could not afford an iron. But now, he needed to make the effort to be more presentable even if he was the most comfortable in faded graphic tees and soft flannels. 

Blindly, Kent reached into the pile on his bed and pulled out a dark blue shirt. When he unfolded it, all the breath left his lungs and the pounding in his head reemerged with a vengeance. 

It was _Jack’s_ shirt, the one from the Q. When Kent stayed over at the Zimmermanns’ residence for the first time, Jack’s sister pulled a prank on him which included vats of paint and feathers from Alicia’s old pink boas. Jack had explained that the prank wasn’t intended for Kent but for Jack. It was Chloé’s way of welcoming her brother back home. 

Because Kent’s clothes had been utterly ruined at the time, Jack had offered Kent his Rimouski shirt. 

(When they had started hooking up, sloppy handjobs in bathrooms at parties which gradually escalated to Jack fucking him senseless in the basement of their billet home, Jack had insisted that Kent keep the shirt. It turned out that Jack had a thing for boyfriend jerseys.)

At the sight of the frayed edge, Kent’s mouth went dry and his hands began to shake. Never before had Kent noticed how time was like water—it could pass slowly, drop by drop, freeze instantly or rush by swiftly. The digital alarm clock he placed on his nightstand would _tick tick_ —saying that time was measured and constant. But he knew the clock was wrong. The past few months passed by like he was trapped in a slow bubble where the colors were brighter and the sounds were louder and the coldness seeped deeper into his bones. All the while his insides felt like there was _nothing_ there, _nothing_ feeling, _nothing_ in need of anything. 

He wanted to scream. 

There was a knock on the door and a, “Yo, Parser! Dinner’s ready—get your ass out here.” 

Kent ignored Scrappy and thought about the fucking distance—the unfillable chasm—between himself and Jack. 

Scrappy walked up and shook him on the shoulder, “Bro! Did you fucking hear me—I said dinner’s ready— _holy shit!_ You’re shaking!” 

That was funny. Kent didn’t even realize he was shaking until he saw the linen shirt in front of him fluttering from his wringing hands and he pressed it right against his chest as he sunk to the ground. He felt like the pit that was his life was swallowing him. There was no light on the top. Not even a million miles away. And no one to carry a rope to pull him out. He felt lower than low. His body was being crushed with pain. With the reality of abandonment. 

Jack had fucking _left._

Perhaps he should have become accustomed to the idea of not being within Jack’s orbit, of being cast away, so long ago but he hadn’t. He fucking hadn’t. Why? Because he had thought their lives were forever intermingled. That Jack’s marks were _his_ marks. That Jack’s existence was _his_ existence. But he fucking hadn’t let go, even after the draft. He held onto that hope. Like a lifeline to a sinking ship. Now it was gone. It snapped and dissipated into an empty chasm.

“Parser! You’re freaking me out here, man.” Scrappy’s voice was so dim and distorted against the rush in Kent’s ears. “Hey—stay here, I’ll get Jeff—” there was some shuffling, “ _—Jeff!_ Get in here—” 

“—I’m fucking cooking!” 

“ _Now, Jeff!”_

When Scrappy left, Kent buried his face in his hands, trying futilely to calm himself but it felt as if there was a large chain wrapped around his lungs and _squeezing_ them until no oxygen could enter or leave.

“Bro, he’s fucking panicking—” Scrappy’s voice entered the room once more. 

If he was not currently fighting the biggest panic attack of his life, Kent might have cringed at how angsty he looked—curled up into fetal position with Jack’s shirt pressed to where his heart was. Fuck, there was no way he was going to live this down. 

Suddenly Swoops entered his line of vision. The broad-shouldered and muscular six-foot-five man looked small when he bent down to Kent’s height. In Vegas, the days lasted a long time and the sun streamed in from the windows at the far side of his room. It cast eerie shadows on one side of Swoops’ face and illuminated the other—as if the man had the potential to be an angel or a demon. 

“Parser?” Swoops looked at him with concerned dark eyes. “You’re okay. It’s okay. We’re here for you. You can get through this.” He looked at Scrappy. “Go get a paper bag for him and some water, please.” 

Kent began to hyperventilate. 

“Hey, hey,” Swoops sidled up to Kent and asked softly, “Can I touch you?” 

Kent gave a swift nod.

Swoops began to rub his back gently, “You’ve had a long day. It’s alright, kid. It’s okay. It’s okay. Just concentrate on your breathing. Stay in the present, Parser. Look at the things in the room—stay in the present.”

Kent gasped loudly. 

“I’m going to point at things I see in the room and you focus on that with me, okay?” 

Embarrassment heated his cheeks but Kent did as instructed. To his gratitude, Swoops did not pry into _why_ he was panicking so badly and just spoke to him in low, soothing iron tones. Swoops pointed out the color of the curtains and the time of the day and the number of drawers. When Scrappy came back with the paper bag, Swoops patiently instructed Kent to breathe into it. Scrappy sat in front of them, making no quippy comments, and counted from one to ten multiple times to level Kent’s breathing pattern. 

After what seemed to be forever, Kent was finally able to speak. 

“Thanks, guys,” he croaked hoarsely. 

Kent wanted to lean into Swoops’ soothing rubbing and fall asleep with his head pressed against a warm shoulder. When was the last time someone comforted him like this? Maybe when he was eight and Mom held him after a nightmare? The scent of Swoops’ clean, earthy cologne made Kent want to burrow himself into his teammate’s neck—like he did as a young boy whenever Leo carried him back to the apartment after a long day in the park. 

Swoops gave him a wry smile, “It’s been a long day for all of us. ‘S’alright to need a minute or two, kid. You feeling like getting up to eat something?” 

Emotional outbursts always left him feeling bonetired and he wanted to sleep more than anything else but the way Swoops peered at him with left little room for him to say he wasn’t hungry. 

“We all need something to eat besides that shitty ice cream,” Scrappy said decisively, patting Kent on the knee. 

“Er—” Kent still felt self-conscious regardless of what either of his teammates would say. He should have been grateful they reacted as well as they did, without calling management or yelling at him. They could have accused him of using too many drugs and going through a withdrawal because the journalists would have. At prospect camp, sometimes they had been considerate enough to whisper about it when he was out of earshot. Sometimes, they had been stupid enough to ask if he was slinging straight to his face.

“C’mon Kenny-doll,” Swoops looped an arm around Kent’s back and pulled him onto his feet gently. 

Kent rolled his eyes and chirped without much conviction, “Don’t fucking call me that.” 

“I make the best picadillo you’ll ever eat.”

“ _Second_ best,” Kent corrected half-heartedly, “My Abuelita would drive you out of business.”

Swoops raised his eyebrow at that statement, “ _Abuela_?” 

Kent shifted slightly self-consciously. He always hated it when people questioned him for his heritage—because it was another reminder that he was the spitting image of his deadbeat father—he rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at his feet. “My mom’s Cuban. I look more like my dad though.” 

“So … that black guy we saw on TV with you at the draft,” Scrappy interjected, “He’s your…?” 

“That’s Leo—my stepfather.” 

“Damn, dude.” 

“What?” Kent asked defensively. Scrappy better not have something stupid to say about his family if he was raised by two moms. 

“Talk about _multicultural_ —your Thanksgiving spreads must be amazing.”

Kent’s eyes lit up at that and he began to prattle on more enthusiastically, “My grandmothers—they like to have a cook off each year to see who can make the best food. Last year, Abuelita won for her picadillo. But I think Nana Diane will win this year for her soul food. Best fried chicken.”

“Ha!” Scrappy laughed, “Sounds like my house. My moms have been arguing about who makes the better food for the last twenty years of their marriage.” 

“And you still can’t cook for shit, Scrappy,” Swoops snorted and then focused on guiding Kent out of the room towards the kitchen. “Your abuela’s not here to hit you with her _chancla_ —you don’t need to praise her to god. I’ll show you my food _is_ better.” 

“You two can argue about your fucking food while we watch _The Princess Diaries_ ,” Scrappy announced, throwing his arms around the both of them without much care. It caused Kent to bump his head against the wall. “Sorry—” Scrappy patted Kent’s head and his eyes lit up, “Ooh, his hair is so soft! Swoops—his hair is like a cloud—”

“Scrappy, what have we told you about petting the rookies?” Swoops reminded with much humor.

“You haven’t told me _shit_ about touchin’ the rookies—” 

“Don’t fucking phrase it like that, you walking lawsuit case.” 

“Shit, sorry.” 

Kent maneuvered his head so it was out of Scrappy’s reach. “ _Princess Diaries_?” He echoed with faint amusement. 

Scrappy gave Swoops an appraising look, “The last time Swoops got dumped, he watched _The Princess Diaries_ for a week straight—”

“No, I didn’t!” Swoops snarled defensively. 

“—oh, shit. It was _The Princess Bride_ —” 

“Fuck you—”

Scrappy gave Swoops a lecherous once over and fucking winked, “That’s tempting. You can do that after the kid eats so much food he fucking knocks out.” 

“He’s going to fucking need it,” Out of his peripheral, Kent could see Swoops frowning slightly. “You’re too fucking skinny, Parser. My grandma’s recipes will fatten you right up—” 

They finally reached the kitchen table and Scrappy poked Swoops in the stomach. “It’ll fatten you, up sure. But be careful or else you’ll fill out like Swoops here—” 

Warmth sparked in Kent’s chest at the lighthearted chirping and the way his teammates treated him with such casual affection. They extended their friendship to him so easily, so wholeheartedly. After dinner was done and his stomach was heavy with food, when Kent settled on the couch and began to nod off—he thought faintly as his teammates laughed at the movie that Swoops’ tacos couldn’t really compare to his grandmother’s Cuban cooking. But they _were_ the damn best tacos he’d ever eaten. 


	2. pretty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kent receives some advice and hugs a teddy bear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Internalized homophobia.

**September 2009**

“You’re doing fine,” Liv assured him over the phone. “You went first for a reason. Or did you forget that?” 

“I went first on a technicality, Liv.” Kent corrected not for the first time. 

He could practically _hear_ the eyeroll over the other line as she stated in slightly aggravated Spanish, “You still would have gone _second_. That’s still really good. You didn’t work this hard to be humble, _stupid.”_

Kent mumbled in English because he wasn’t as fluent as Liv was. It was a byproduct of living away from their family for so long. “Doesn’t matter how hard I work—my coach hates me. He put me on the third line and yelled at me for putting in extra time on the ice. I can’t do anything right with that bastard.” 

“Who’s your coach again?”

“Mike Keenan.” 

“Okay.” There was some shuffling on the other line as he heard his sister yell. _“Grandpa!_ Do you know a Mike Keenan? Yeah! Kenny says his coach put him on some third line—” More rustling and some swearing could be faintly made out. “Grandpa asked if your coach is on dope. Is he _really_ known for being a bastard?” 

Joseph Parson was the only hockey fan in the family and consequently Kent’s biggest supporter. When he was five, Grandpa Joe had picked him up from school early to take him out to the ice rink and the rest was history. 

(Though that still hadn’t stopped Leo from making chirps about how Kent could have been a professional NBA player if Kent had just agreed to drink his milk. Leo was probably right—Kent might have been at least six feet in height but milk was fucking nasty so no thanks.) 

Kent decided he didn't want to worry his sister any further and assured her, “I’ll talk to him—” 

“But is he really being that hard on you? Maybe it’s not too late to ask if you can play for New York—” 

Yes, it was. He signed a three-year contract with the Aces back in June. He couldn’t play for the Islanders _now._

“... You worry too much, Liv.” He replied softly, imagining the crease that formed in the middle of her eyebrows. “There’s a nice bakery here that sells _pastelitos de queso._ Not as good as yours but I think they’re probably enough to win him over.” 

“Hmm…” his sister didn’t sound convinced but she didn’t press the topic any further. “Did you know Nana is thinking of moving down to Miami to retire in the next few months? We’re having one last Christmas and then she’s going. Says she’s gonna go husband hunting. You’ll come back in time for that, right?”

Christmas in New York seemed so far away yet Kent could not wait for it—he might finally get a break from being scrutinized for his every move and from being Coach Keenan’s punching bag. 

“Of course. I wouldn’t want her to go to Florida without saying goodbye. How did Leo take that by the way?”

“Not well and then Grandpa started hitting on her just to annoy him. I’ve never seen Leo so… _livid_ ,” Liv paused for a second and then snickered, “His face was turning _purple_.” 

Kent hummed noncommittally, knowing where the conversation was headed. “I’m assuming that Grandpa will follow Nana to Florida soon? Maybe she and him will _finally_ get hitched.” 

His sister snorted over the line. It was no secret that while his Grandpa Joe and Nana Diane disliked each other initially, they bonded over the shared experience of being a single parent. That coupled with their mutual hatred of youth culture, growing atheism in the country, and loud pop music made for a secret bet in the family (secret because Leo would have a _conniption_ if he knew Nana dated) on when they would get together. 

Liv muttered loudly, probably because she was able to gossip in her dorm without worrying about family eavesdropping.“We all knew they were going to go down to Florida once _abuela_ and _abuelo_ went your freshman year. It’s about _damn_ time—the apartment was too fucking crowded with all of us. Couldn’t go anywhere without one of them telling me to put on more clothes.” 

“You know you can admit that you’re going to miss them,” Kent said. _He_ certainly missed his family—including all three sets of increasingly irascible and hard-of-hearing grandparents. 

“Eh,” Liv chuckled. “I think Mom and Leo are going to enjoy finally having some time to themselves. Empty nest and all.” 

“Do they still insist on dropping by your dorm every other weekend? What the fuck are you doing to make them so worried?” He inquired archly. 

Liv whined. “You know, the purpose of sending your child off to college is so they can be independent. Mom _still_ comes by and flips my mattress to see if I’ve got drugs hidden underneath. I’m at _Columbia_ —not NYU! We’re not a party school. If you went to New York, she might hover around me less.” She remarked bitterly. “You are _so_ lucky you’re a million miles away—we should fucking switch places.” 

Kent gently pinched himself so his voice wouldn’t crack with pain at the next words, “Yeah. Sucks to suck.” 

Liv’s voice shifted seamlessly into the one she used whenever she had wanted to tag along with his friends as a child. “It’s not the same, y’know. I thought you’d still be _here_ when I got my acceptance last year. That you’d come with me to orientation instead of being stuck in the middle of the desert. College’s not the same without you.”

“It’s your dream, Liv.” He paused before adding. “And Vegas is mine too.”

Last December, a few days before Christmas, when Kent actually managed to get away from his billet family to celebrate with his real one, they all gathered around the computer in the middle of the apartment living room to watch Liv open her acceptance letter to Columbia. She had been accepted as a creative writing and film and media studies double major for satirical publications in _The New Yorker_ and her internship on some Broadway production. It still hadn’t quelled complaints from Grandpa Joe that Liv was going to waste her education on a useless degree but they would take what they could get. Once Kent had found out Jack’s sister, Chloé, was also going to Columbia—he made sure the girls exchanged numbers. He had regretted it when they ganged up on him but seeing Liv’s eyes light up at the prospect of college, freedom and new friends was well worth it. 

That made it much easier for him to drop fifty-grand for tuition and board when he got his first check.

And then a few weeks ago, Liv emailed him a picture of her, Mom, Leo and Grandpa in her decorated dorm room—all four of them wore a piece of Aces merchandise. Leo in a dad cap, Mom in a tee, Grandpa in a jersey, and Liv with the biggest oversized sweatshirt of all time.

“I still have the right to complain that our dreams putting us in different time zones sucks _ass_.” She retorted.

Kent replied through the knot in his chest, “This is just how the dice landed, kiddo.” 

She sighed and asked, “How’s the weather in Vegas? Did you get the eyedrops Mom and I mailed you? She also sent a care package too—with her empanadas too. Were they good? Or did they go stale?”

“Vegas weather is shit. My eyes are _still_ dry and I got the empanadas. My teammates ate half of them, though. Scrappy said it was better than sex.” 

“Really? He must be having pretty shitty sex then.” 

“That’s what I told him,” Kent tightened his grip on the phone, missing the snarky edge to Liv’s voice more than ever. “He’s a good guy though.” 

“Okay.”

Kent cleared his throat and insisted. “He is. Got two moms—so he’s not an asshole by default.” 

Though he didn’t say it explicitly, he knew Liv got the gist of it: Scrappy could be trusted to know that Kent was gay. 

“Oh, that’s cool. What about your roommate? He’s not an ass, right?” 

Kent thought about how Swoops had somehow become Jeff after the incident with the shirt and how he regularly initiated playing with Kent’s hair because Kent was too self-conscious to ask. He thought about Jeff letting him fall asleep on his lap and cooking for him regularly because he was useless in the kitchen. He thought about Jeff who asked Kent if he wanted help from one of the team therapists and insisted he could have the higher-ups to be discreet about it (read: to hide it from Coach Keenan who would fucking flip his shit if he knew Kent was getting help even though a lot of management encouraged it amongst the players). He thought about Jeff not pressuring him (“It’ll always be available to you, kid,” Jeff had rumbled, “So no pressure—alright?”) even though Kent said no and probably shouldn’t have. 

“Not an ass.” 

That still didn’t mean Kent was ready to tell his only friend—and maybe Scrappy could be counted too—that he was gay. 

Liv laughed, “Okay then. Now, _you_ make sure not to be a rich ass either. Just cause you made two mill doesn’t mean you have the right to turn into one of these Econ guys at my school. Horrible.”

“There was a cap, Liv. It didn’t break two million.”

“It does with your bonuses. Did you even _read_ your contract? Are you even sharing a lease? What about your new stupid Keurig we bought you? Will you read the instructions?” She sighed heavily into the phone and he bit his lip, laughing at how much she sounded like Mom. “You’ve called Mom and Leo at least _four_ times. ‘How do I fix a dishwasher? Jeff’s gone, Mom. How do I make soup? Is the oven supposed to beep all the time? What do I use to clean the floor?’” 

Kent laughed. He _had_ called them at ungodly hours for that. It turned out that Jeff was fairly useless at fixing appliances and Kent was also useless around the house. They both agreed to solve their home maintenance problem by hiring a housekeeper. 

Liv continued, “ _Although..._ I think Leo secretly likes it. He misses you a lot. Our grandparents too.” 

Even though Leo never made the effort to call Kent directly, Kent grew perceptive enough to know when his sister and mother were calling of their own volition or when they were calling on Leo’s behalf. His stepfather was chill like that to never nag him outright.

“Don’t let them miss me too much,” Kent chuckled. “They’re going to be retiring in Florida. They should be enjoying their time.”

“You know _damn_ well that Grandpa will have Mom send you emails with lots of criticism about your hockey plays.” 

“That’s funny because Abuelo promised to send me a box of cigars if I win the Cup.”

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Liv asked exasperatedly. “He can’t just send a nice card for when you win—” 

He pulled back for a moment, absorbing the self-assured way his sister said ‘when’ and not ‘if.’ “I’d prefer the cigars to be honest.” 

Liv grew more concerned, “I thought you weren’t smoking or partying. None of that to clean your image—” 

“Gotta let me have _one_ vice, Liv.”

“Can’t be smoking.” 

“Why not?” Kent whined. 

“Smoking is bad. You’ll play like shit if you have bad lungs,” Liv threatened, “I won’t go to any of your games in New York.”

Kent shrugged and shifted the phone so it was pressed between his cheek and shoulder as he grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge. He teased, “What? Scared I’ll embarrass you at home?”

There was a long period of silence on the other line and Kent felt worry bubble up inside him.

“It’s _your_ home too. It’ll always be your home.” Liv whispered. It was jarring to him because she was abruptly switched to Spanish. “But I also want you to make Vegas your home.”

He sighed deeply. “Liv, I—” 

“You have to make a life there,” she said. “It’s your dream. Don’t think you have to come back or anything. We’ll support whatever you want, Kenny. Make a happy life there.”

Kent felt himself take a shaky breath. If he was supposed to build his own life, so far away from everything he ever knew and loved, where did that leave _them?_ Where did that leave his family? A treacherous part of his brain told him that he wasn’t wanted in New York anymore. That he _wouldn’t_ be wanted in New York anymore if they knew everything about him.

“Liv…”

“I know what happened to Jack was fucked up … but _please_ don’t let that define you. Carve out a piece of that hockey legacy for yourself too. Do whatever it takes to be happy, Kenny. Don’t worry about us or Jack or anyone else. Just take care of yourself.”

“So…” Tears prickled in his eyes, “I can’t bug you in your new dorm when I’m in New York?”

“Bring some cute players from your team and then we’ll talk.”

“They’re all too fucking old for you and they’re ugly as shit.” 

“Bring the younger ones! Am I supposed to think of everything, Kenny?” She tsked over the phone. “Make sure to eat your vegetables too! You have the palate of a child—don’t stick to only Kraft Mac n’ Cheese and get scurvy!” 

“I’m not gonna get fuckin’ _scurvy_ —” 

Liv hissed over the phone. “How would _you_ know? Are _you_ a nutritionist? You’ve had people cooking for you your entire life!” 

“Look,” Kent rubbed the ridge between his eyes. If Liv was turning into Mom, did that mean Kent was turning into Leo? Or even worse, _Grandpa?_ He didn’t want to know the answer to _that_ question. “Jeff has me covered. He’s been cooking more often now.” 

And with that his sister launched into her familiar tirade about how it was unfair that their mother insisted _she_ learn how to make an array of Cuban dishes but never dragged Kent into the kitchen. He let her speak—savoring the sound of her shrill voice—until she told him it was time for her next class. 

“Bye! Love you.” 

Kent made a face, “You’re nasty.” 

“You love it!” She hung up.

* * *

A week before preseason started, Jeff and Scrappy brought him over to Blitzer’s house to have a barbecue. They said normally Wolfie would have hosted them—since he was the captain—but with a baby on the way it was too stressful for his new wife. If Kent’s stomach wasn’t turning and twisting so badly, he would have laughed when they said Wolfie had a shotgun wedding because he knocked his girl up. 

Blitzer’s home was just outside of Vegas, in a secluded area that required driving past other large luxury homes. Fake grass lined the large front lawn which led directly towards a colossal structure. The mansion stood proudly behind the gates, flanked by rows of palm trees that loomed above the entire building.

“Isn’t he superstitious about buying a house?” Kent asked. From what he heard about Blitzer, a luxury mansion hardly seemed like his style and some hockey players could be weird about purchasing property. They said the instant a man dropped money on a home, he got traded. 

Jeff snorted at the front of the wheel. “Blitzer’s dad played with the Penguins and invested his bonuses into land around different states. This isn’t his home—it’s his father’s.” 

“That’s …” There were so many things Kent wanted to point out—to scrunch his nose at—but he couldn’t so he settled on lamely saying, “... nice.”

“By nice, you mean slightly pretentious? You’ll get used to it kid. Some of these people grew up rich _rich_.” Scrappy supplied from the passenger seat. His feet were kicked up on the dashboard and Kent could see the frown etched on Jeff’s face. Jeff didn’t say anything but Kent felt as if he silently agreed. Soon they found a spot on the large driveway to park. There were many luxury cars around them. 

Kent got out on his side of the car and followed Jeff towards the doorway. He pulled the new iPhone he bought with his check and Googled the average price of a home in Vegas. 

“172,000 thousand?” He whispered. “What the fuck?” 

Damn, his parents should have moved here so they could buy a home instead of staying in their shitty Brooklyn apartment—his hockey career be damned. 

Jeff gave him a suspicious look, “What’d you say?” 

“Nothing—my sister texted me something about cute frat boys,” Kent pretended to gag. “Ugh, she’s my _little_ sister, y’know? I don’t want to hear about her sex life.” 

“No, I don’t. I’m an only child.” Jeff commented lightly before switching the topic. “I’m glad Blitzer agreed to host the party. He always throws good ones but he’s too fucking busy communing with nature or hugging trees in his free time. Fuckin’ hippie.” 

Kent laughed. Blitzer _was_ a hippie. 

They began to make their way to the backyard, following a stone lined walkway with many small cactuses and succulents. Kent nodded along to Jeff’s comments, making sure to be charming and attentive. But his heart struggled to settle. This was the first time he was interacting with the team outside of practice and he needed to convince them that he wasn't some teenage hedonist who loved nothing more than to go down to the Strip and snort coke off strippers. He _needed_ to show them that he was as worthy a first-draft pick as Jack ~~is~~ — _was_. That he was more than just ‘Party Boy Parson’ the media made him out to be. 

It hadn’t taken much to convince Jeff and Scrappy—other than a full blown fucking _panic_ attack which was embarassing as hell and Kent wasn’t too keen on the idea of flipping his shit, _again,_ in front of all his teammates to gain their trust. If anything, it might just lose their respect. 

Kent was lucky Jeff had invited Matty Heikkinen over a few days ago. Matty was blond as fuck, maybe a little too slender to be a hockey player and definitely weird in the way goalies tended to be. The man had spoken with a snobby British accent—even though he was from Finland—but was also friendly enough to have greeted Kent with a hug and a hard slap on the shoulder before asking about his favorite album of all time. Matty had been so impressed that Kent liked Mariah Carey’s _Daydream_ album that he offered a bottle of the finest Irish whiskey on the market. But Kent had known better and immediately refused it.

The Aces were a relatively new team in the middle of rebuilding and a drug scandal could have wrecked their hardwork from the past few years. Hell, _Jack_ had forced them to reorient their entire plans for the next few years by dropping out from the draft. 

A scandal with Kent on the front page could dash all their attempts at a good image. While he knew Jeff and Scrappy were good guys, he could hardly say the same for the others. There was a sinking suspicion they looked at him with derision—speculating on when he would crack under the pressure like Jack did. 

When Jeff offered to introduce him to a few teammates, Kent readily accepted even if he was thirsty and wanted to sit down in the shade. Smirnov and Chessy were in their late twenties, with wives and children, so Kent politely inquired about them though he possessed no desire to have Chessy shove pictures of his toddler son into his face. It wasn’t that _Kent_ disliked children; it was that he avoided them because _they_ disliked him. 

Then he began to talk to some of the other players closer to his age. Thrasher and Sully were a year older than him and had played together for their rookie year. 

“So, like, is it true Bad Bob’s daughter is hot?” Thrash asked, leaning back on the lawn chair and tilting his head to get a better view of Kent. It was likely youth and lust that caused him to be so insensitively bold. “Saw her on a mag.” He gave a low whistle. “Hot stuff.” 

Just the mention of Bob and Chloé caused Kent’s heart to ache in pain and his lungs to constrict, like a large fist wrapped around it. “She’s like my sister,” Kent shrugged, trying to sound noncommittal. “So I can’t really say.” 

Sully, thank god, at least had the good sense to hit Thrasher on the head. “Yeah _dudeee—_ you know the code. Little sisters, moms and daughters are _off-limits.”_

Thrasher whined in pain. “What? How was I supposed to know they’re close? It’s not like _his_ last name is Zimmermann.” He still gave Kent a conciliatory smile. “Sorry about that, Parser.” 

Kent cracked a wry smile, even if the conversation was making him more than a little uncomfortable. “Fyi, if you hit on my _actual_ sister—I’ll fucking knock your lights out.” 

Sully gave a low _oooh_ while Thrasher held his hands up defensively and bowed his head in apology. 

A few minutes later, once some food settled in Kent’s stomach, Jeff made sure to introduce him to the only other rookie on the team. 

“Watch this.” Jeff said as he took a deep drink from the coke can and crushed it. He threw it towards the can that was several meters away. When it landed with a loud can, Jeff gave a loud shout and pumped his hand. 

“Nice, man.” Kent eyed the shot with appreciation. 

“Thanks. Now—how’s your Russian?” 

“Shit.” 

Jeff scrunched his face up and then shrugged, “Mashkov’s accent’s pretty thick but for the most part he speaks English pretty well. He was supposed to play with us a few years ago.”

“Then why didn’t he?” 

“Some bullshit with the KHL and passports. I don’t fucking know. Russia’s fucking weird.” 

“Can’t be weirder than Brooklyn. Once saw a woman taking a crap in a sock.” 

“In a sock—” Jeff’s eyes widened and then he cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Okay, why don’t you go charm him with your crazy New Yorker stories. He’s a big teddy bear so he’ll probably laugh at them… I hope. If it goes horribly wrong, you’re only stuck with him for the rest of the season.” Jeff patted him hard on the back. “Have fun Kent.”

Kent was _not_ excited but he walked up to Mashkov, who was conversing in rapid fire Russian with Smirnov, and offered a simple, “Hey, man. What’s up?” 

“You are Kent Parson?” Mashkov asked. 

“That’s me.” 

Mashkov’s face lit up. “My friend—his name Mikhail Lipovetsky—he play with you before?” 

“Oh, Butters? What about him?”

“He tell me story. Feathers glued to forehead. Is true?” 

Kent groaned, “You’ve got to be _fucking kidding me—”_

“—Is not kid.” Mashkov interrupted with absolute sincerity. 

“—I can’t believe _that’s_ how you know me. If I ever see Butters again, I’ll kill him.” 

“No kill Misha. Misha good man. Why threaten?” Mashkov chided.

“Because he can’t keep his mouth shut—” 

“Is not Misha’s fault you look like little birdie,” Mashkov teased and did a poor imitation of a squawking chicken. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Kent grumbled and pushed Mashkov a bit. “My sister pulled a prank and it’s—well it’s none of your damn business.” He snapped. 

Mashkov raised an eyebrow and shrugged, “Really? Okay, I make my business and ask Misha for picture. I know he have.” 

_“Fuck_ my life man.” 

Kent received a solid pat on the back, which ended up making him stumble a bit. “No need to be sad, little Parser—” 

“ _Little_ _?”_ Kent stomped his foot in protest. 

“—Yes, _little_. You itty bitty,” Mashkov made a point by putting his thumb and middle finger together so they were _this_ far apart and squinted. “Like little mouse, yes?” 

His face flushed from the chirping though, if anyone asked, it was from the sun. It hardly helped that Mashkov was exceptionally handsome, in a large, rustic sort of way. Kent rolled his eyes in an attempt to hide his faint embarrassment, “You’re like my sister. She’s almost as tall as I am and makes fun of me whenever she wears heels.” 

Normally, he didn’t offer such specific details about his homelife but there was a wide, guileless sincerity in Mashkov’s eyes. The deep brown was soft and inviting and there was an enthusiastic smile pulled across that chiseled face. 

“Ah,” Mashkov nodded sagely. “I do same to older sister and brother. Teasing means love.” 

“Oh? You have siblings? How many?” 

“Not many. Mama and Papa too busy so they have two first but then have accident and I am here.”

“Shit man. How much older are they?” 

Mashkov’s face lit up and there was the unmistakable trace of love in his voice as he responded with, “Alina eight years older and Sasha six years. Alina get married and thinking of having baby. Am trying to convince her to name Alexei.”

“What if the baby’s a girl?” 

“Then Alexis.” 

“That’s not a Russian name, is it?” 

Mashkov shook his head, “No, but is close to Alexei. Either way will be uncle soon.” Mashkov pulled out two wicker lawn chairs and gestured for Kent to sit. He did as suggested and sat. “Now _your_ sister?”

Kent took a sip of his cooled bottle of water. “She’s a freshman at Columbia.” 

“Columbia?” 

“Big fancy college. Think Harvard but in New York.” 

“Ah.” 

“She’s studying filmmaking and screenplay writing. Wants to make films and be an actress.” 

Mashkov tapped his chin with his finger, “She good?” 

“ _Very_. Always got away with more stuff as a kid because she lied better.” 

“ _Act_ better. Act not same as lie.” Alexei corrected. 

“Act better,” Kent agreed. “She’s only a year younger than me but I think she’s a lot smarter. Reads a lot. She has a publication in a big magazine … writes very well. One time, for my birthday she wrote a comedy skit about a hockey player. It was _horrible_.” 

Mashkov put down his drink and sighed fondly, “Love her very much, yes?” 

“... She’s my best friend.” 

“Lucky to have sibling so close in age.” Mashkov commented with a little jealousy. “Alina and Sasha never wanted to play.”

“You’re not close to yours?” 

“No—am _very_ close. Just not play. You know how I am good at hockey?” 

Kent shook his head. 

Mashkov puffed his chest out and proclaimed proudly, “Alina was figure skater. Made gold at Olympics last time before retiring. She introduce me to skating.” 

“... You were a figure skater?” 

“Not very good but was first love. All because of Alina. But Sasha tell me play hockey instead. Much better at hitting puck, da?” 

Kent laughed, “I know. I’ve seen you practice..”

“Am good at hockey but Alina ten times better at skating. She first in world for seven years straight. Make Mama so proud. Follow Mama footsteps.” 

Kent tilted his head to the side and asked, “Whose your mother?” 

Mashkov looked down at him and said, “Irina Tunicova.” 

“Holy shit—” Kent’s eyes widened, “My sister _loves_ her—watched the whole documentary and all.” 

“Mama best at skating,” Mashkov insisted before tacking on, “Sasha good at science too. He live in Boston—do research for big school with weird name. Mit?” Mashkov pronounced MIT like ‘catcher’s mit.’ 

“MIT? Oh shit. He’s gotta be fucking smart.” 

Mashkov nodded seriously, “Sasha so smart. I think maybe he put Russian on Mars. Or blow up Mars. Either way, Mars his.” 

Kent lifted his bottle of soda water. “To siblings who are fucking geniuses.” 

“To blow up Mars.” 

“To blowing up Mars,” Kent eyed Mashkov. “Y’know … I didn’t think you’d be the normal one of your siblings, Mashkov. I guess to each their own.” 

“Is Alexei.” 

“Huh?” 

“You tell me about family. I tell you about family. We friends. Friends call me Alexei.” 

“Alright, then, Alexei.” He let the word roll off his tongue, slightly unfamiliar but not unwelcome and offered. “You can call me Kent.” 

Alexei shook his head, “Kent? No—call you Kenny. Easier.” 

Kent felt a stab of painful familiarity when Alexei said the word ‘Kenny’. There were only a handful of people who called him that and one of them was his former best friend in rehab (Jack was on the floor, Jack was twitching, Jack was seizing, Jack was _dead, dead, dead_ —), another was his sister who lived in New York, and the last was his grandfather who was moving to Florida. Still, it had been a long time since someone so inviting, so earnest, called him ‘Kenny’ with genuine affection. 

“Yeah, you can call me Kenny.” 

* * *

When Kent told Jeff that his new friend was coming over to play videos, Jeff slapped on the back. “Just don’t fucking get crumbs all over my carpet,” Jeff grumbled in the way Kent knew wasn’t sincere, “It’s hard work being your only friend _and_ maid.”

“Don’t sit on the couch,” Kent said as they walked into the living room. “Use the beanbag chairs.” 

“Why not use couch? Couch for sitting.” Alexei gave him an inquisitive look. 

Kent shrugged, “Not when it hurts your ass. We can’t get rid of it because Jeff’s mom gave it to him.”

If they wanted, they could probably fit the entire first line—and some of the guys on second—on the hard ass fucking rock couch but things would get a bit cuddly. However judging from various players’ Twitter accounts and the official one for the Aces, the team was pretty cuddly. There was an ongoing joke where players rotated as Scrappy’s designated pillow on roadies. 

(“Even your boney shoulders are more comfortable than Jeff’s fucking couch,” Scrappy had mumbled once when he fell asleep on Kent’s shoulder and drooled a puddle onto his shirt after they bingewatched _The Notebook_ and _P.S I Love You_ on the floor. 

And that’s how they ended up buying a million beanbag chairs.)

Alexei followed Kent into a kitchen—used by Jeff and Jeff _only_ because Kent couldn’t cook for shit and Scrappy liked to experiment with weird foods that gave people indigestion—that was scrubbed from head to toe in the morning. It was so pristine strangers would not have known it was used on a regular basis.

“Why you wear hat inside?” Alexei pointed at the Aces cap that was perpetually glued to Kent’s head. “Americans tell me rude to wear hat inside.” 

Jeff cut in, from where he was sitting at the island and flipping a book about American politics. It turned out that with enough teasing from Heikkinen and nagging from his mother, Jeff _could_ be forced into reading. “Parser’s hair looks too fucking weird,” Jeff uttered, not bothering to look up from his book. “Like Sonic the Hedgehog. Sticks up everywhere.”

Kent thought there was nothing wrong with his hair other than the fact that it stuck up oddly sometimes and he liked to wear snapbacks because they were _fashionable_ —not because he was insecure. But that was a conversation he was not going to have with Jeff _again_. 

“Maybe he wear hat to look taller, because Parse so small,” Alexei said to Jeff, shaking his head. “Like little potato.”

“I will flick you like you’re a little tater tot.” Kent threatened lightly.

Alexei inclined his head “Tater tot…?” 

“They’re like little potatoes,” Kent offered and when Mashkov indicated no sign of comprehending, he walked to the freezer. While Jeff normally cooked for him and Kent both, they kept premade foods in the freezer to pop into the oven when needed. Like when both of them were hungover. He pulled out the deluxe bag of tater tots purchased from Costco a few days ago. “You see? Like little potatoes.” 

“I’m sure Tater gets it, Parse.” Jeff drawled. 

“Tater?” Both Kent and Alexei asked at the same time. 

Jeff rolled his eyes as if both rookies were blind, deaf and dumb. “ _Mash_ kov. Mashed potatoes. Mashkov is a big potato. Tater tots are small potatoes. It’s called _irony_.” 

“Ohhhhh,” they both said at the same time. 

Kent pulled out his phone, “Alright. We need to introduce the world to our newest Tater tot. Make sure to smile Alexei.”

“Do you need to post _everything_ on Twitter? You’re a child.” Jeff pointed out with a poorly hidden smile. 

A second later, Alexei had Kent in a headlock and was beaming at the camera. Jeff held up the camera and Kent held back chirps about how his roommate reminded him of a tourist mom on vacation. 

“Say, _cheese,”_ Jeff beckoned Alexei to loosen his grip on Kent and then the flash on the camera went off. 

“Hey, Alexei,” Kent said, eyes on the screen of his phone as he posted on Twitter, “What’s your username on Twitter?” 

Alexei hesitated for a second, “Not have one. Not open in Russia.” He flushed in a way that hinted at embarrassment at appearing too foreign. 

Jeff groaned and banged his head against the table lightly, “Here we go—” 

“What?” Alexei asked, whipping his head around. 

“Too _fucking_ late, bro.” 

“Huh—” 

“Don’t even fucking argue—” 

“I’ll take care of that. You _need_ to have a Twitter _and_ Facebook but we’re not using MySpace. MySpace is trash.” Kent cut in before giving Jeff a sidelong glance. “Shouldn’t you be going on your date tonight?” 

“Shit—” Jeff scrambled to go to his room and called out. “Don’t fucking burn the house down while I’m gone!” 

“There’s some food in the fridge,” Kent shuffled over to the fridge and pulled out a tupperware container of some dumplings Jeff made. “Okay, so Jeff made some pierogies and we can eat that. We can’t eat his cheesecake though—he’s real touchy on that. I can’t fucking cook and I’m not going to fucking cook. Do you want takeout?” 

Kent looked up and winced. He should have thought about this before inviting Alexei over. Alexei was leaning on the kitchen island and Kent wasn’t sure what his friend would say next. Was Kent being inhospitable? 

Alexei gestured for Kent to hand over the tupperware box. “Need to see if good like babushka’s,” Alexei shoved two dumplings into his mouth at one time and made a sour face. “Need sour cream,” he said through a mouthful of half-chewed meat and pastry.

Afterwards, Alexei offered to make Kent a traditional Russian dish because Kent was the only person in the world who didn’t have their grandmother pass down ancient family recipes it seemed. One time during Thanksgiving Kent attempted to help Nana Diane and Abuela Elena in the kitchen. When he burned the tostones and added salt to the candied yams, they both banned him from _ever_ helping at holiday dinners which worked out fine because he would watch games on the TV with Grandpa Joe.

As Alexei chopped ingredients— _damn_ had _his_ parents prepared him for living alone—they talked about hockey and it was an easy conversation. The players they liked growing up, the games they went to and Kent even talked about how Grandpa Joe saw his potential for greatness when Kent grabbed a tree branch and shuffled a soda can into an empty trash bin. When Alexei began to talk about playing in Juniors, Kent tried to find a way to shift the gears of the conversation. 

“How’d you have the time to learn how to cook? _Whoa,_ this smells really good.” Kent peered over Alexei’s massive shoulder and tried to sneak a taste of the minced beef filling bubbling away on the stove. 

Alexei snorted and swatted Kent’s hand away. “Mama learn to cook after retire. Papa also cook well too. They need hobby they say. So they force me to learn too. Scared will eat only take out when move here. Babushka tell me need to cook to impress girls too. Babushka right.” Alexei smiled fondly, “First girlfriend like my food.” 

A part of Kent’s heart sank to hear ‘girlfriend’ but only because Kent would _never_ be able to speak openly about his dating life without lying. 

“That’s cool,” Kent without much sincerity tried to get a taste of the food. 

“You—” Alexei hissed, “Stop that. You go get potato and grate.” 

“Grate…?” 

“Box with holes? Make food smaller. Grate.” 

“Uhhh, okay. I’ll look to see if Jeff has one.” He probably did except Kent had no fucking clue where anything was in the kitchen. 

Kent eventually found it and after washing some potatoes (he nearly began with unwashed potatoes and only remembered when Alexei chirped him for wanting to eat dirty food), he ended up with about a pound of grated potatoes. He kept looking over at Alexei and nearly cutting off the tips of his fingers. Alexei always nodded and smiled and made nice comments. Tentatively, Kent felt himself smiling back. It wasn’t the smile he plastered on his face for interviews. It was a genuine one. 

He began to understand that behind all the smiling, all the joking, all the easy conversation that Alexei seemed homesick. From what Kent gathered, Alexei only ever spent time with Smirnov, the only other Russian on the team, or Bartkowski, who was actually Polish but spoke Russian proficiently enough. If Kent felt out of place, a few hundred miles away from New York City, then Alexei was a fucking Martian in the middle of the goddamn desert. 

Alexei was sort of like Kent—fronted like a pro but was really sort just lost. 

Once the _draniki_ were fried up and the _golubtsy_ was finished boiling, Kent took a picture of the food and posted it on Twitter. He even tagged the new account for Alexei. Maybe that’s how it started. 

**Kent Parson** @therealKVP · 20h

@jefftroy_14 is no longer my personal chef. That belongs to @TaterMashkov.

[image: Alexei giving a thumbs up while holding plates of fried potato pancakes and stuffed cabbage leaves]

Open Thread

> **Jeff Troy**  
>  @jefftroy_14 · 16h
> 
> replied to: @therealKVP guess my potatoes don’t stack up to his :(((
>
>> > **Alexei Mashkov**  
>  @TaterMashkov · 6h
>>> 
>>> replied to: @jefftroy_14 no worry!!! your potatoes still very good )))
>>
>>> **gimme da goal**  
>  @hockey_fangirl214 · 6h
>>> 
>>> replied to: @jefftroy_14 is this supposed to be some innuendo? OMG never thought i’d ship a threesome so badly
>>>
>>>> **Xavier Coleman**  
>  @xaviercoleman · 3h
>>>> 
>>>> replied to: @hockey_fangirl214 :((( but y’all ship me with Swoopsie

**acesfan97** reblogged **pucksandshit**

pucksandshit:

what’s the point of having parse go to vegas without zimms if he’s not going to be gay and domestic with tater and our boy swoops? 

> YOU
> 
> GUYS

#i’m laughing so hard #we should have known #aces #give me more patater

**522 notes**

The PR office fucking _hated_ them for their tweets at first but then acquiesced when they saw the increase in Aces jerseys. 

* * *

Kent found himself hanging out with Alexei a lot more than he anticipated. After practice, they usually went to go eat at hole-in-the-wall restaurants at Jeff’s suggestion—the consummate foodie. Sometimes they crashed at each other’s places which led to Kent wearing Alexei’s clothes and having his fair share of oversized tees. (Scrappy liked to tease them for being hockey husbands. The rest of the team liked to remind Scrappy that _he_ regularly wore Jeff’s shirts. It all backfired on them when Scrappy walked into the locker room wearing nothing _but_ Jeff’s shirt and smacked Jeff on the ass. Jeff said he hated all of them to death and banned Scrappy from his closet.) Other times, on roadies, Kent fell asleep on Alexei’s shoulder and while the other guys chirped him to oblivion for it, Alexei never seemed to mind. Once Alexei had Scrappy take a picture of Kent—mouth wide open and drooling—so he could make it his screensaver.

Whenever his mind was being particularly self-destructive or he was in a mood, Kent wondered if Alexei, or any of the other guys, would be so comfortable with physical contact if they knew he was gayer than a fucking rainbow flag in San Francisco. A part of him _knew Scrappy_ and Jeff would be okay with it. Another part of him also didn't want to test that theory because hockey players were usually okay with lesbians but not okay with gay men. It was shitty and hypocritical and toxic that way.

They were all hyped for the first away game of the season. Despite Coach Keenan being a general ass, their plays were working well, they were connecting on the ice and there were generally good ESPN reports on their preseason. Preseason had gone well—it went _really_ well. Which meant some of the guys were rowdier on the plane than usual. 

“Listen,” Thrasher said very seriously. “What if we play against the Aeros and they can’t focus because of how pretty Swoops looks? He looks like he should belong in a boyband.” Thrasher did a poor imitation of Jeff flipping his floppy hair back, “Look at me. I’m Swoops. I belong in N’Sync,” before punching Scrappy in the shoulder. “

“Ow! Man. What the fuck?” Scrappy whined. 

“Swoops might be a boyband member but my sister thinks you’re hot too.”

Scrappy straightened up and asked with clear interest, “Oh, _really?_ Is this the hot one we met last time?” 

“They’re _all_ hot,” Thrasher retorted indignantly before he made a voice, an octave higher than it usually was. _“_ ‘Connor, he’s so hot. He could walk all over me and I’d be fine with it. Can you please, _please_ get his number? I’d let him wreck my insides.’ And I always told Hannah that she wasn’t going to date a hockey player, let alone one like Scrappy.” 

“Hey!” Scrappy threw his hands up. “One like _me?”_

Thrasher nodded gravely, “One as stupid and dickish as you.” 

“That’s too bad because your mom seemed to like my dick.” Scrappy said nonchalantly before he put on his earbuds. 

Some of the guys within the vicinity let out chirps and low _ooohs_ while Sully patted Thrasher comfortingly. 

Sully said solemnly, “You fucking walked into that man.”

Thrasher recovered from the insult fairly quickly and commented with too much brightness. “Parser! I know _you_ got a sister. Do _you_ think she should date someone like Scrappy? I know he’s hot but y’know…” 

“He isn’t even _that_ hot,” Kent mumbled, lying a bit. He didn’t know what he was saying but he was too fucking paranoid to make comments affirming another man’s attractiveness even if it was someone like Scrappy, who was universally agreed upon to be an Adonis. Personally, he thought Jeff was up there. But it was Jeff’s lack of flaunting and mother-henning that probably made him a low-radar contender. 

The other guys let out a gasp. 

“I can’t fucking believe you,” Scrappy held his chest dramatically. “That shit hurts.” 

“That’s blasphemy.” 

Matty shook his head. “Utter bullshit, Parser.”

Kent smirked and then pointed at Matty, smirking, “My sister does think Matty’s hot though.” 

Scrappy complained, “Man, what the _fuck?”_ He pointed at Matty who was stuffing his face with the shitty airplane food. “She thinks _he’s_ hot?”

Kent just shrugged. 

Alexei, who remained mostly silent throughout the conversation, pointed out brightly, “Accent make girls like him. Sound fancy—like Jude Law.” 

Matty _did_ sound like a fucking Brit.

Matty smirked, sticking his tongue out to v who then threw a neck pillow in retaliation. _“Thank you._ It’s all apart of my sex appeal. _That_ and my striking my blue eyes.” 

Kent just sighed and kept his mouth shut as the other players launched into a long discussion about which players were the most attractive on their team. They came up with different criteria: abs, ass, legs, dick size and smile because at least one of the categories needed to be wholesome. 

He wondered sometimes … if he was the only one. He knew, theoretically, that he wasn’t because he and Jack fucked like rabbits but it _felt_ like he was the only one in the world. He didn’t have crazy ex-girlfriend stories like the other guys and he never came to practice with hickeys or a cocky grin from a good fuck. It sure as hell seemed like he was the only gay person in the entire world. 

Yeah, the temptation was there—to hook up with random guys at bars but what if he was outed? Keenan would kick him off immediately, the homophobic fuck, and he was probably on thin ice with management. They made him do extra sessions in media training for a _reason._

If anyone ever asked about the rumors of him and Jack, he would deny them vehemently of course because that’s the bullshit he needed to do in order to _stay_ in the NHL. His reputation would be ruined beyond repair if the truth ever came out: Kent Parson, first pick of the 2009 draft, was gay. 

If anyone ever asked, he would say there wasn’t even a smidgen of truth to it. He needed to work to convince the other guys he was straighter than an iron rod. He _couldn’t_ talk about who was the hottest guy on the team. Not possible. 

Still, it would be reassuring to know that someone else avoided looking at the other guys in the locker room too. That someone else was fucking meticulous about all the ass slapping and cuddling shit the other guys participated in. That he wasn’t in it alone. 

“I think Kenny prettiest on team. Big eyes. Long lashes,” Alexei was watching the TV screen—they were playing the newest SNL episodes. Kent had told Alexei that his sister got a part-time position as a comedic writer for the show and filmed a short skit with them for the latest episode. 

Instead of chirping him, Thrasher and Scrappy both inclined their heads and stared for a long time at Kent before coming to a consensus. 

“Yeah,” Thrasher agreed. “Pretty like a fucking girl.” 

Scrappy squinted and then laughed loudly, slapping his own knee, “How did I never fucking notice? You’re _fucking beautiful_ Parser. In fact,” he came closer and grabbed Kent’s face with both hands, “Ya kinda look like Matty.” He turned his head around and hollered, “ _Matts!_ Doesn’t Parser look like he could be your little brother?” 

Matty, who sat in the row behind them, stuck his head so it was looking at Kent upside down—like that one scene in _Spiderman 2_ . “Holy shit! _Yeah!_ No wonder you’re a fucking beaut. It must run in the family.” 

“Kenny sister pretty too. Look like his twin,” Alexei offered while giving Kent a mischievous grin. He paused the playing of last week’s SNL episode and said “She on TV show. Play student who hit on professor. Here, I show—” 

The three stooges—Scrappy, Matty and Thrasher—scrambled into Kent and Alexei’s row to see the small airplane TV screen. Scrappy even sat on Kent’s lap. 

“Get off—” Kent wheezed when v’s elbow jabbed his ribs. 

Scrappy uttered with too much sincerity, “I’ll get off to your sister—” 

_“You fucker!”_

Thrasher rubbed his eyes, “Whoa. Parser, your sister’s so fucking hot. Dude, can I get her number?” 

“ _No! You fucking can’t!”_

“It’s okay, I’ll just go through your phone while you sleep—” 

“—It’s password protected, dipshit!” 

“So we all agree that on the basis of him looking like _that—”_ Matty pointed to Liv on the frozen screen, “—that Parser’s the prettiest of us all.” 

“Agreed.” Scrappy, Thrasher and even Alexei echoed. 

Kent looked at Alexei with betrayal, “You too?” 

“You are prettiest Ace.” Alexei patted Kent’s knee and considered seriously, rubbing his chin. “Maybe prettiest conference player.” 

“Seriously?” Any other time, Kent might have fished for more compliments or said something cocky but this felt more sincere coming from Alexei so he didn’t. 

“Yes. Kenny prettiest Ace.” 

v looked between the two of them with an odd expression and then said abruptly, “Alright, now that we got Tater’s vote on which one of us is the hottest—we need Chessy’s. Who’s gonna fucking wake him up?” 

Thrasher and Mattty both yelled, “Not it!” and then ran back to their respective seats. 

“Fuckers,” Scrappy muttered lowly before stalking off. 

Alexei motioned at the skyline outside his window. “Your eyes—look like that. Yes?” 

Kent followed his gaze, then turned his head away to hide his embarrassment.

“Kent Parson prettiest eyes. Like sky.” Alexei breathed sincerely.

“Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, bud.” 

“I am right.” Alexei’s eyes lit up and he patted Kent’s knee again.

At least he could tell Liv later that he made another friend—one who thought he was pretty and one whom Kent thought was the hottest on the team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to address Kent's feelings of general inadequacy and apprehension when interacting with the other players regarding his sexuality in this chapter. I also wanted to throw in hints of the toxic masculinity and oppressive environment perpetuated by hockey culture and the NHL. 
> 
> Sure Scrappy, Thrasher and Matty all agreed that Kent is pretty. But some of them also say insensitive things like, "That's so gay," or they use insults like, "cocksucker." Does Scrappy have two Moms? Yes. Does he protest against homophobia? Yes. Do the Aces love his moms? Yes. But is there generally a double standard regarding the acceptance of LGBT men and LGBT women? Yes. Does that mean homophobia has been eradicated from locker room talk? Absolutely not. 
> 
> This means Kent is forever on edge when he's changing. He doesn't talk to people for the most part. He doesn't stare and he tries to get his business over with as soon as possible. It's a very sad but very realistic defense mechanism someone I know, who plays college football and is also gay, uses so he doesn't accidentally out himself.


	3. steel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Aces win a game, Coach loses his mind, and Jeff continues to surprise Kent.

**October 2009**

Tomorrow was their first game of the season and Scrappy decided to barge into Kent’s room—while Kent was changing and half-naked—to announce, “Here ye, here ye! We are going to eat at one of my favorite joints, _baby!”_

Scrappy’s voice became an octave lower and a decibel louder when he said ‘baby’ which Kent caused Kent to wince.

“Can you not be so loud?” Kent asked, pulling on his shirt which clung to him because he was fresh out of the shower. 

Instead of responding, Scrappy’s eyes narrowed in on Kent’s open drawer. “Well, well, well,” he drawled, smirking like a goddamn cat who found the canary, “what do we have _here?”_

To Kent’s horror, Scrappy pulled out the raggedly lion that was poorly hidden underneath the pile of neatly folded clothes. Kent had been getting his suitcase ready for their roadie in a few days. 

“Give it back.” Kent held out his hand expectantly. 

“Nope. No way.”

_“Scrappy.”_

“I just wanna look at it,” Scrappy whined and stuck out his bottom lip, giving a very put-out put because he was a fucking _child._ “Don’t deny me this please, Parsey.” 

_“Don’t_ call me Parsey.” Kent began to chase Scrappy around the bedroom, walking on the pristine beds and jumping over the drawers. “You _fucker—_ gimme Brightroar!” 

Scrappy stopped in the middle of his tracks, one foot in the small closet and another outside of it, _“Brightroar?_ Okay, now you gotta let me see him _—c’mon_ Parser. I always defend you when Coach goes all apeshit.” 

Kent rolled his eyes but gave in and stopped chasing Scrappy. He _knew_ he was going to regret giving Scrappy priceless chirping material _._ Although Kent lived with Jeff, sometimes it felt like he had two other roommates. Scrappy always dropped by and refused to sleep in his own apartment because he demanded attention like that (“I’m lonely in my big room. It’s not fair you guys get to have a sleepover,” Scrappy had whined when Kent told him to get out of his room—the clingy fuck) and Alexei liked to hang out in Kent’s in his free time. 

Although he would rather die than admit it, he appreciated the constant companionship. It was utterly preferable to replaying _Jack on the floor, Jack on the stretcher,_ and _Jack in the hospital_ whenever Kent was left alone. His mouth went dry just hearing Jack’s name from reporters sometimes so he decided to bring little Brightroar with him. 

Because whenever he held the stuffed lion, he could hear Grandpa Joe’s voice. 

“I got you kid—nothing to worry about. If you fall down, I’ll help you up,” Grandpa Joe had said when he took Kent to the rink for the first time. Kent had refused to step foot on the ice, claiming he wasn’t interested but truly he had been scared shitless. Once Grandpa had managed to convince him, skating became as easy as fucking breathing. 

Now, he liked to hear those words—the gruffness always accompanied by a hint of affection—when life felt too damn overwhelming. 

When Kent looked up, Scrappy was sitting on _his_ bed and cradling the lion gingerly to his chest. 

Kent hadn’t liked Scrappy much at first—he was too overwhelming and goddamn _loud_ and nearly fucking killed them all with his shitty driving. But he grew fond enough of the fucker when Scrappy gave him a paper bag to breath into and ran his fingers through Kent’s hair and made stupid commentary on the cinematography of _The Princess Bride_. Kent knew he was looking at Scrappy like other player was an ass, which he fucking _was,_ but Scrappy was also one of the few to consistently stick up for him. So he was on the lower tiers of general assholery. He was pretty sure Scrappy knew that Kent was, to his utter chagrin, rather fond of him. 

That was the only reason why Kent wasn’t hitting him on the head as Scrappy cooed at the stuffed lion and talked to it—like it was fucking living. 

“Okay, enough. Can you just give him back?” Kent disliked how desperate his voice sounded. 

“Nope,” Scrappy teased and patted the lion’s tangled mane. “I want to hang out with Brightroar.”

Kent’s eye twitched slightly. “Well, _he_ doesn’t want to hang out with you so come _here—”_

“I can’t _believe_ you named him Brightroar.” 

“Shut it,” Kent ground his teeth. “My grandfather gave him to me when I was younger.”

Scrappy held the little lion closer and turned his back to Kent, “Can’t give him back now. He’s too cute!” 

Kent was beginning to regret ever allowing Scrappy in and where the fuck was Jeff? The only people on the entire fucking planet who could control Scrappy were his two mothers and Jeff—none of whom were even within the vicinity. But before Scrappy barged into the apartment and subsequently Kent’s room, his mind had slipped back into thoughts about Jack. When he hadn’t been able to locate his deodorant, he had turned to empty space, asked, “Zimms have you seen—” and had to stop himself before he could finish the sentence. So the distraction was somewhat welcome. 

“You need to get your own lucky charm then,” Kent retorted, jumping onto Scrappy to snatch back his lion. 

Scrappy crowed, “Hell no!” and threw Brightroar under the bed so he could wrestle Kent. The two men laughed as they took handfuls of each other’s shirts and attempted to wrestle the other onto the bed. Then Kent released his fistful of cotton and used it to jab at Scrappy’s ribs. Scrappy grabbed the back of Kent’s shirt and attempted to flip them over. Then he began to tickle Kent’s underarms. And when Kent burst into loud peals of laughter, that was the end of their bout of wrestling. 

Short, immature, and goddamn fun. 

“You fucking cheater,” Kent laughed, trying to squirm away from Scrappy’s hands. 

Scrappy, the cheeky motherfucker, rubbed his patchy playoff beard on Kent’s neck. “You’re just mad because I’m the best.” 

Kent wriggled underneath the weight of Scrappy’s muscular body and wheezed, “Okay, I fucking give up—now get your stupid face away from me.” 

Scrappy flopped onto his side, propping himself up on one arm and whispered conspiratorially, “You wanna know what _my_ good luck charm is, Parser?” 

“What is it?” Kent grumbled, bending over the side of the bed to grab Brightroar. 

“Your sister.” He smirked. Liv was tall, tanned, and totally out of everyone’s league but it still didn’t stop the guys from making kissy faces whenever they saw her SNL skit rerun. 

Kent tried to kick him off the bed but Scrappy only held onto his foot. “Fuck you man!” 

“Okay,” Scrappy struggled as Kent tried to jab him with his other foot, “Calm down—Jesus fucking Christ you’re feisty. Is it the Cuban in you?” 

“Okay, first of all.” Kent rolled his eyes, “That’s kinda offensive—like racially offensive—and second of all, don’t fucking talk about Liv.” 

Scrappy held his hands up and smiled mirthfully, “Sorry man.” 

Scrappy did not sound sorry at all. 

“My good luck charm’s a bracelet my uncle had made when my Mama was pregnant with me.” 

“You’re not adopted?” Kent raised his eyebrow. 

“Uncle Dewayne’s my Mom’s brother. He donated his sperm so Mama could carry me.” Scrappy confirmed. “My moms had been together for a while and it wasn’t legal for them to get married yet,” Scrappy shrugged, “But they really wanted kids so here I am. Mama wore the bracelet the entire time.” 

Kent didn’t know what to say so he settled with, “That’s cool.” 

Scrappy said proudly, “It _is._ I was in their wedding in Ontario when it was legalized in ‘03.” 

“That _is_ really fucking cool.” 

“That’s how Swoops and I became friends,” Scrappy admitted while wiggling to get comfortable on the mattress. “Unusual families make for unusual friends.” 

If that wasn’t the truest thing Kent ever heard. He thought about Jeff, with his white parents, Scrappy, with his two moms, and Alexei, with his crazy siblings. It _couldn’t_ have been a coincidence that Kent—the boy with a mom, an absentee father, and a stepdad who didn’t look a damn thing like him—ended up befriending the people on the team with the weirdest fucking families. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” Kent punched Scrappy’s shoulder. 

Scrappy laughed, “I _will_ tell Swoops that you sleep with a lion.” 

That was okay. Jeff would keep his mouth shut. 

Kent barely noticed when Alexei stepped into the room and only turned around when Scrappy’s face suddenly split into a wide grin. 

“Look at my man!” Scrappy yelled, “Tater—what took you so fucking long?”

Alexei looked at the both of them with a poorly hidden frown on his face, “You break into my house. Walk into bathroom while I shower and tell me we go eat yesterday. I got to apartment today. Not see you. But now I see you _very_ busy.” 

Kent was so startled by the grimness on Alexei’s face that he didn’t even _ask_ why the hell Scrappy thought it was okay to walk in while another man showered. 

“Oh, uh…” Kent looked at the both of them on the bed, so close their knees touched, their legs partially tangled and their shirts rode up, and couldn’t offer a sufficient explanation. 

Scrappy managed to offer, unperturbed by Alexei’s arrival, “Just doing some good old gossip. You wanna join us Tater?”

Alexei grumbled slowly, looking at Kent and then Scrappy and then back at Kent, “Not enough room on bed.” 

Scrappy looked at their cramped queen sized mattress and then nodded, “You’re right. Not enough room. Do you guys want to wrestle on the floor?” 

“No,” Kent and Alexei said simultaneously. 

Scrappy pouted, “You two are no fucking fun. I’m going to leave and wake Swoops up—pretty sure he forgot he promised to go to brunch with us.” 

Alexei asked Scrappy, “You sure you not forget to invite him?” 

“I—err—” Scrappy rubbed the back of his neck and breathed sharply through his teeth, “Oh, _fuck_.” He scrambled off the bed, not before giving Kent an exaggerated kiss on the cheek and slapping Alexei’s ass hard. “Wait there—I’ll bring Swoops and then we can continue our gossip over mimosas!” He called over his shoulder before vanishing down the hallway.

Kent found himself alone with Alexei, whose eyebrows were raised despite a crestfallen glint to his eyes. “Something you need, Tater?” 

He didn’t want to sound rude but he was very self conscious of how he looked earlier and Scrappy kissing him had not helped at all. So much for hetero deflection. 

“Want to ask why women like brunch. Never have mimosa before. Sasha say ‘chicks dig it’. I think he too American now,” Alexei gave a smile but it looked fake as fuck and Kent suddenly couldn’t figure out _why._ Alexei usually wore his emotions on his sleeve. Then Alexei let out a low sigh and then commented, “But you busy with Scrappy.” 

Kent blinked owlishly and then shrugged slowly, “Scrappy was just bein’ Scrappy. He barged in and then—” he rolled his eyes, “—fucking started going through my stuff.” 

Even though Alexei didn’t _need_ to know, Kent found himself saying, “I have something I want to show you.” 

“What?” Alexei’s brows furrowed, “You not stuff body into closet, right? Am here on visa. Cannot get arrested.” 

Kent shook his head and giggled before pulling Brightroar out of his shirt where he stuffed him earlier, “This is my good luck charm. Scrappy found him by accident but—” what Kent was going to say was that he _wanted_ to let Alexei in on this little secret, because he trusted Alexei but he was a fucking pussy so he settled on a shrug, “—so, uh … I’ve had him since I was a kid and he’s been there with me for every game. Good luck charm, you know?” 

Alexei relaxed significantly, “I know. That’s good—” he smiled quickly and then added hastily, “I’m having one too. Alina buy for me. Little owl. I put on keychain.” Alexei fumbled through his pockets before pulling out his obnoxiously large set of keys. How many did a man need? “Is Hoot,” he proclaimed loudly. 

“Hoot?” Kent asked. 

“Hoot.” 

“This is Brightroar. My grandfather gave it to me. Reminds me of him,” Kent admitted. “He was the one who got me to love hockey…” 

“Like Alina do for me.” 

“Yeah, like you,” Alexei abruptly pulled him off the bed and said, “Time to get brunch American women love so much, yes? Then yell at Trash for bad planning.” 

“Trash?” 

“Scrappy. Scrappy. Scrappy is trash. He trash today because last minute plan.”

Kent snorted, “Don’t tell him that or he’ll _never_ shut up. Whiney little fuck.” 

“Am bad at English. Not stupid.”

* * *

Kent managed to score a hattrick in the game against the Sharks. In the first game of the season. 

His _first_ hat trick and it helped secure the victory. 

Goddamn, that shit felt euphoric as fuck. 

It felt even better knowing that, instead of every goddamn face of hokcey media talking about the sad, sordid tale between Kent and Jack or speculating about who would’ve gone first, the public wouldn’t even _question_ if he was right for the Aces. He _was_ a good pick—he proved it by being the best goddamn player out there today on the ice. Surely the media would have run out of gossip rag material by now. It was almost November for fuck’s sake. 

Wrong. 

When he made his way back to the locker room. Jackass reporters shoved their microphones into his face and asked whether or not he knew when Jack was getting out of rehab. If Bob canceling all his appearances in ESPN was Kent’s doing. If Alicia pulling out of her new film in October was related to season starting. 

How the fuck would he know any of this? 

It wasn’t as if the Zimmermanns told him _shit._

But they spun it to seem like Kent had been the Zimmermanns’ son. They dragged up pictures of Kent knocking helmets with Jack. They shoved pictures of Bob taking Kent out to eat. They plastered images of Alicia hugging Kent after a long game. What a load of fucking steaming horseshit. If he had been anything _like_ their son, they wouldn’t have cut off all contact.

It still didn’t stop him from missing them so goddamn much. 

He missed each Zimmermann, in various ways. He missed Jack’s soft touches and cautious kisses, always afraid and uncertain that maybe he was doing something wrong or maybe they would get caught until Kent told him otherwise. He missed Chloé’s laugh and the way she sang as she walked around the house. He wondered if she was still working on her music or if Jack’s OD put a halt on _that_ too. He missed the way Alicia towered over him in heels. He wanted to hear give him fashion advice one more time. He missed having Bob make flan and arroz con leche because there were no Cuban bakeries in Canada and he had missed his mom so goddamn much. It tasted like shit when Bob made it but it was the thought that counted.

His chest burned with each thought—Alicia and Bob had promised Mom and Leo that they would look out for Kent and now he knew they only cared out of fucking obligation and wasn’t that just the worst way to be loved? Out of obligation? 

He also hated the talk about the drugs. He didn’t fucking touch them. Had never fucking touched them. But he could hardly yell at reporters, “I don’t fucking do lines off strippers, you stupid vultures,” now could he? 

“Don’t let it get to you, Kent,” Jeff told him encouragingly as they made their way back to the locker room. “It’s all just talk.” 

When another goddamn reporter shoved their voice recorder into his face and asked for the umpteenth time if he was still in contact with the Zimmermanns, Kent felt dangerously close to beating them and was grateful when Jeff handled the questions with ease. The only upside to the whole situation was that the media practically forgot he had a family back in New York. If the paps were following his family and invading _their_ privacy because of him, he wasn’t sure how he would have coped. 

“Easy for _you_ to say,” Kent grumbled. All ESPN reporters did was comment on Jeff’s on-ice chemistry with Scrappy and poke fun at his boy band looks. 

Jeff ran his hands through his hair. It was no longer floppy because he got it cut recently. While highly attractive, his former hairstyle had also been highly inconvenient and got in the way of his vision. “Parser—” 

“Kent Parson, Jack Zimmerman was recently released from an in-patient rehabilitation center for drug addiction. Care to comment?” A journalist shoved their microphone into his face. 

It was hard to tell how Jeff would react sometimes. While Jeff always put on airs—carefully crafted disdain for everything and calculated apathy—Kent knew differently. Jeff noticed everything and was meticulous in how he approached situations. Like how on camera, Jeff was articulately sarcastic and a little self-deprecating—turning his snark to charisma. During interviews, he carefully dodged uncomfortable questions with ease but now he looked like he wanted to throw something at the reporter. 

“Seeing as we’re busy winning games and constantly road, it seems irrelevant and off-topic to ask about Zimmermann _._ Parser and I are hardly the right people to bombard about _that_ type of celebrity gossip. Maybe you should try Deadspin or TMZ?” Jeff snorted and then slung his arm around Kent’s shoulders, dragging him away. “You okay, Parse?”

Kent told himself that maybe Jeff wouldn’t ask, because Kent would talk to him if he wanted to. But he also wondered if Jeff _expected_ Kent to be willing to tell because Jeff told Kent a lot of things he wouldn’t just tell anyone. They spent so much time together, things slipped out here and there. They shared an apartment, because Jeff was Kent’s designated babysitter, and the guys (read: mostly Scrappy) constantly chirped them about being work husbands. 

Jeff had casually brought up how he didn’t mind looking out after Kent because he always wanted a younger brother. He also mentioned how he didn’t know much Spanish either, on account of growing up in fucking _Weston, Massachusetts,_ and how it made him slightly insecure about his heritage. 

However they didn’t have those sorts of conversations often. It’s what Kent liked most about being friends with Jeff. Jeff never _expected_ Kent to open up about what bothered him, but he would listen when Kent needed someone to talk to. 

Now, Kent tensed up next to Jeff. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Jeff shrugged. 

“You _want_ to know, though, don’t you?” Kent asked. It verged on vicious. 

Jeff didn’t look like he was having any of that. It was mildly infuriating, how calm Jeff could be in the face of stress, because sometimes Kent _wanted_ to get a reaction out of the other man. 

“Eh, maybe. Maybe I do wanna know, so I can understand why you’re upset. I only know snippets of the story,” Jeff shrugged. “Can’t really imagine what you’re going through so maybe I wanna help. But go ahead—” Jeff gestured at him slowly, as if giving him an opening, “—by all means, get bitchy and pretend I’m just here for gossip. It’s not like I’m your _friend_ or anything. Sure as hell haven't been looking out for you these past few months.”

“I wasn’t trying to say—” 

“Sounded a lot like it.” Jeff cut him off bluntly. 

Kent blinked and then sighed, “I’m sorry.” 

Jeff gave him a once over and then nodded nonchalantly, “Okay. That’s fine.” 

“I am.” 

“I believe you.” 

“Then why do you keep on looking at me?” Kent snarled. 

“I really hate that thing you do … the thing where you try to piss people off if shit’s not going your way.”

“I don’t do that.”

“Chyeah. Yeah you fucking do. And it’s stupid.”

Kent clenched his fists, “If I’m so fucking stupid, why are you here? Just leave already.”

“See, you did it again.” Jeff pointed out. “I’m not a fucking reporter. If you don’t want to talk about Zimmerman, why don’t you just say so? I’ll let it go. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Whatever.”

Kent wouldn’t look at Jeff as they walked down the tunnel. He wasn’t even _mad_ at Jeff. He was mad because he kept saying the wrong things or doing the wrong things and somehow people always tied it back to Jack.

“Parse, you’re my friend, okay?” Jeff rolled his eyes. “You dense piece of shit. I just wanted to let you know you can fucking talk to me. That’s literally it.”

Kent didn’t reply for a moment, chewing his bottom lip. “How do you always know how to say stuff like that?”

They opened the door to the locker room where some of the other guys were already changing. 

“It was on an episode of _America’s Next Top Model._ The one you like so much. I checked it out,” Jeff admitted with no shame. “The girls were having a bonding moment.” 

“I _told_ you that you’d like that show.”

“It’s _trashy.”_

“Tyra Banks is classy. She’s an icon,” Kent muttered back, still a little irritated. But even as frustrated and angry as he was, he still couldn’t help but feel the remnants of adrenaline—he just scored his first hattrick in an NHL game. On the _third fucking line._

Scrappy ribbed as he came out from behind and made his way to his own stall, “What do _you_ know about class, Parson?” 

“More than you.” 

Scrappy flicked Kent’s patterned snapback, purchased explicitly for how hideous it was. “ _T_ _his,”_ Scrappy scowled, “proves otherwise. It _hurts_ my fucking eyes. Maybe Don Cherry’s right.” 

Don Cherry liked to make snide remarks about Kent’s fashion choices and his hair which was ironic as all hell. 

Kent rolled his eyes at him, but he was secretly grateful for the normalcy of the chirping, glad the guys moved past their dubiousness and treated him like nothing was out of the ordinary. He scoffed, “You’re gonna take advice from _Don Cherry?”_

“No—” Scrappy snickered, “but I will take advice from my own goddamn two eyes. That hat’s a fashion disaster.” 

“But if Ken-doll takes off his hat, he’ll have to expose us all to his hair,” Jeff drawled from his own stall though Kent could not see him because he was pulling off his shirt. “And that’s definitely worse. Looks like Sideshow Bob.” 

Kent protested but he still ran a hand through it self-consciously, “My hair isn’t that bad.” 

“It’s not that bad when you squint and close one eye,” Wolfie informed him teasingly before giving him a hard smack on the back. 

Kent thumped his captain on the shoulder good-naturedly, “Is that you tell yourself at night when your wife kicks you out of the bed for being so ugly?” 

“Hey! The baby makes her uncomfortable,” Wolfie snipped back. 

Kent shrugged, “I can’t believe she agreed to reproduce with you.” 

“I’ll have you know that I’m a catch,” Wolfie jabbed him in the ribs lightheartedly. “You mouthy little fucker.”

“You’ve got _that_ right, Wolfenheim,” a low, growly voice called out behind them all. 

In an instant, the locker room fell silent as all the players watched their head Coach—‘Iron’ Mike Keenan—walk in and spit on the floor. Kent grimaced at the gesture. That was just downright _unsanitary_ and rude to the janitorial staff who would have to step near it. 

Wolfie fumbled for a moment before asking, “Excuse me, Coach?” 

“If it’s too much for you to respect your captain, Parson,” Keenan said, “I’m sure we can find someone else who can.”

Kent was told he had a potty mouth and an inability to filter his words so he was about half a second away from telling Keenan to go fuck himself with a cactus out in the desert, but he worked too hard to get where he was now. So obviously he wasn’t going to say that to his head coach and he definitely couldn’t risk being on thinner ice with management. He was a rookie. They could have easily replaced him, hat trick or not, so he gritted out, “I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.”

Keenan snorted and then snapped, “That was fucking disgraceful. You show poor performance on the ice and then act like _this_ off of it? Parson, what the hell are we paying you for? To be a jackass?”

“What—I— _Coach—”_ Wolfie sighed, eyes flickering from Kent to their head coach and then back to Kent, “It was just a joke—” 

“What? You think what _I’m_ saying isn’t serious? That Parson has the right to treat everything like it’s all shits and giggles—” 

Wolfie began to get frustrated, “Coach, you _know_ he didn’t mean it—” 

Instead of snapping at Wolfie, Coach Keenan began to stalk towards Kent. 

Wolfie furrowed his eyebrows and stepped in, putting a hand on Coach Keenan’s chest—which only worsened the situation. “Coach, it was just teasing. Parson didn’t mean anything by it.”

Coach Keenan sniffed and bared his teeth, “Yeah, I’m sure he didn’t.” 

“He _didn’t,”_ Wolfie insisted firmly, eyes sharper than steel. “It’s just chirping, Coach. We all do it. It’s part of the culture. You’ve heard it before.” 

“Yeah,” Coach Keenan sneered, glaring at Kent and curling his lips, “I’ve also heard that you think you’re the shit because of that little hat trick of yours. Guess, what? You _aren’t.”_

A small part of Kent’s mind sparked with indignation—he played _really fucking well_ tonight—but he mostly felt guilt. He was just a rookie and there were other guys in the team who did well too but the media was so caught up in finding the details regarding Jack’s overdose and how Kent related to it that they forgot about the others. 

Kent looked down at his feet and muttered, “I’m sorry, Coach.” 

A part of him knew he shouldn’t be sorry. He had been playing out of his mind for months, scoring goals in most of the games even if he was on the third line. He knew that. The other guys on the team knew that. What did he have to be sorry for? 

_(For being a burden,_ a voice whispered. _For dragging everyone down.)_

“What good does your fucking apology do?” Keenan snarled. “Is that what you’re going to tell fans tonight when you act like a piece of shit? Is that what you’re gonna tell management? That you’re _sorry?_ You’re full of horseshit—” 

“I,” Kent started, fumbling desperately. “I’ll try harder. I’ll practice more—maybe if I put in more hours—” 

Wolfie cut in sharply, “You’ve been putting in enough hours on ice, Parser.” 

Their assistant coach, Martinez, walked up to Keenan and put a hand on his shoulder. “He played well tonight, Mike. Everyone’s talking about his performance. You heard what they said about Parson—” 

“Yeah,” Coach Keenan sneered, glaring at Kent and curling his lips, “I’ve also heard that Parson here’s a little fucking cunt. What? Did letting Bad Bob’s junkie son rail you convince you you’re special? That you’re some goddamn prince—” 

_“Hey!”_ Wolfie exclaimed, indignant, “Coach what the _fuck?”_

Jeff took a few steps up to Coach Keenan and hissed lowly. “Look—you may be our coach but you can’t talk to him like that. He was good on the ice tonight— _really_ good—and—” 

“What? You gonna defend the little bitch?” 

Jeff muttered darkly, “You need to calm down _now_ and apologize to Parson. He was just doing his fucking job and you don’t get to lay into him for being a good hockey player. He helped us win the game. It’s what he’s _supposed_ to do—he’s been trying really hard!”

“Trying doesn’t mean jack-shit if he’s gonna be an asshat on ice!” Keenan roared, his face steadily turning more and more purple. 

Martinez looked greatly troubled by the turn of events and began say placatingly, “Mike, get a hold of yourself—this isn’t _right—”_ he gave Kent an apologetic look, “Why don’t we take this conversation outside—” 

“This isn’t a fucking conversation.” Keenan spat. “This is Parser being a disrespectful little bitch. He thinks he’s so smart. ‘Yes, sir. No, sir. I’m sorry, sir,’ You got anything useful to say? Or are your lips only good for sucking dick—” 

Kent clenched his fist too hard and grit his teeth from an effort to remain silent—he needed to be on his best behavior to stay with the Aces. One hat trick wouldn’t be enough to fucking convince him he wasn’t some loose cannon who was going to rage like a goddamn lunatic. He hunched his back over so they wouldn’t see how fucking furious he was. Animosity bubbled up in him like lava, burning, slicing, all-consuming. He could taste blood on his mouth from the suppressed rage and when Coach began to snarl at him again, he nearly snapped.

Jeff yelled, “What’s your goddamn problem, man?” 

“My problem is that he—” Coach pointed a finger at Kent, “—is an entitled fucking bastard who thinks that because he was a first pick—which he _wasn’t_ because we planned on having Junkie Jack—” 

“Don’t call him that,” Kent gritted out, all the air leaving his lungs. “Don’t fucking call me ‘entitled’ and don’t call Jack a ‘junkie’.”

Each word stung like fuel in a fire that swirled and raged inside him. Each spitting, snarling sentence was like gasoline to his inferno. The final straw was Keenan insulting him like that. 

No—what the hell was he talking about? It was the entire _world_ that was the last straw. It was the insults he got when other players checked him and asked if Jack’s dick felt good. It was the disappointment in management’s face when they realized they needed to reorient plans intended for Jack. It was speculative questions from hockey commentators who didn’t know a single _damn thing._ It was Don Cherry’s personal vendetta against him, forever criticizing everything about him from his fashion choices to his hometown to his hockey style. It was the faint, disapproving look from some of the older players on the team who _still_ thought he was some cracked-up, drug-addled teenager who didn’t respect the game. It was the entire oppressive world and how they fucking had it against him since fucking day _o_ _ne._

It was his anger, his bitterness—dark and toxic, eating away at him. He knew now that Jack didn’t have it easy. He knew Jack struggled. Struggled from crippling depression and anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. But hadn’t Kent suffered too? Hadn’t he watched Jack have seizures that ripped through his mind? That left him unconscious and confined to a hospital bed? That left Kent wondering if the love of his life was going to fucking wake up? Hadn’t he been forced on a plane across the world, away from everything he had ever known and loved? Hadn’t he stayed up all night long, unable to sleep, because the image of Jack _dead, dead, dead_ replayed in his mind like some self-destructive tape about to explode. 

“I don’t care who you are,” Kent snarled, trying desperately to keep his voice steady. “If you _ever_ talk to me like that again, I’ll—”

He finally managed to knock the words right out of Coach Keenan’s filthy little mouth. The man was staring at him, slack-jawed, with veins popping out of his forehead. 

He didn’t get to finish the rest of his sentence because Scrappy got in front of him and blocked his view of Coach Keenan and said calmly, “It’s been a long day and there are interviews to be had, questions to be answered. Why don’t we just continue on with our business?” 

Two hands grabbed his shoulders hard enough to leave bruises, and Kent looked up defiantly at Scrappy who just gave him a warning look. 

Coach Keenan breathed heavily, like a bull about to charge, “You don’t get to tell me what to do, you affirmative action pick—” 

Kent saw anger flash across Scrappy’s face. 

“Yes, he does.” Wolfie’s voice cut in. The words were colder and sharper than pincers. They sliced deeper too. “You’re being an ass. So _stop it.”_

_“Excuse me?”_

_“Mike,”_ Martinez said coldly. His expression left no room for argument. 

When Keenan saw he was outnumbered, he growled, “Fine! Coddle Parson as always!” 

Then Keenan stormed out.

Martinez ran his hands through his hair and sighed, “I’ll talk to him. You guys take it from here. Wolfenheim, you come with me.”

As Wolfie walked out of the room, he exchanged low words with Jeff who nodded grimly. 

Kent had never seen Jeff truly angry—Jeff’s neck veins popped out and he breathed heavily, like a bull ready to charge—but apparently Scrappy had because he walked up to Jeff and put a placating hand on the small of his back. 

“You calm the fuck down. It’s okay,” Scrappy mumbled. 

“It’s not okay,” Jeff snapped, shrugging off Scrappy’s hand. 

Scrappy shook his head and inclined it in the direction of Kent. The storminess began to fade from Jeff’s face. That seemed to do the trick because Jeff walked up to him and began to inspect him carefully, “You okay, kid?” 

Jeff used his rarely exercised ‘I’m the alternate captain so fucking listen to me’ voice. 

Kent nodded numbly, unsure about the exchange that just occurred earlier. 

At that, Jeff gave a sigh that made him sound several decades older than he truly was and turned around to the other occupants of the locker room. They were all staring, some wide-eyed and others grimly, at Kent. “You all know the drill. None of this leaves the room. Don’t tell no one. Not your goddamn girlfriends, mothers, or friends. No one else hears this shit.” 

When Jeff received no answer in response, he repeated in a louder voice, “None of this leaves the room, _okay?_ Or else you’re skating suicides for the next practice and eating my fist for dinner.” 

The other players began to mumble their affirmative responses and got back to changing. Though none of them dared to approach Kent about his exchange with Coach Keenan, more than a few of them gave Kent sympathetic looks. 

Kent finally regained his sense and began to walk out of the room, tears forming in his eyes. 

He ignored Jeff’s pleas and calls for him to stay. 

* * *

Kent ended up in some dark and loud bar he knew none of the other guys would step foot in. He was cautious, and he wasn’t being stupid, so he didn’t even bother to try and order alcohol even though he could really use a drink right now. He wanted a whiskey sour, not because he liked the taste, but because it reminded him of Grandpa Joe. Grandpa Joe always knew what to say and Kent wanted nothing more than to call him. He didn’t bother to. It would just worry the old man. 

He was contemplating his life choices and watching the ice in his coke melt when he heard someone sidle up to him. When he looked up, he saw it was Jeff. 

Jeff didn’t offer a greeting and just asked the bartender for, “Two old-fashioned. With the finest fucking whiskey you got.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow at Jeff’s defeated expression but had the perception not to ask. 

“Couldn’t have picked up your phone, huh?” Jeff grumbled, sitting in the seat next to Kent. 

When Kent had gotten into the taxi cab, he promptly turned off his phone—which buzzed incessantly with calls. 

Kent rolled his eyes and refused to speak. 

“Listen,” Jeff began, giving the bartender an appreciative nod as they placed the drink in front of him. “I know what happened to you was fucked up—happens to all of us.” 

“Yeah,” Kent said bitterly. “I’m sure it does.” 

“Doesn’t make it okay,” Jeff responded with great exhaustion and a hint of anger. “It’s not fucking okay but it’s the reality of playing with the ‘big boys’.” 

There was a certain level of acceptance in Jeff that almost equated with peace. It was like his spirit dislocated from his body, as if he was leaving for a shirt while, wherever souls went when life became too much to handle. Kent envied Jeff for that ability. Kent thought he was a fairly tough person, growing up in Brooklyn was like that, but he didn’t want to go through the process of facing reality. He was at a level of worn-out that was unbearable. 

Kent asked desperately, “Is it _always_ going to be like this?” 

The constant media attention, the grilling from Keenan, the perpetual state uncertainty. 

“No,” There was something Jeff definitely wasn’t telling. Jeff looked too determined. He was tired and disheveled (instead of defined curls against his forehead, Jeff’s hair looked like twenty four flavors of wrong and that was coming from _Kent)_ but there was a frantic energy to him. He was unusually twitchy. 

“What do you mean?” Kent asked suspiciously. When Jeff didn’t answer, Kent needled him. “Why are you here? What do you fucking want Jeff—I swear to _God—”_

“You hungry?” Jeff asked abruptly, brushing a hand across the curls on his forehead. His eyes were hard flints of stone and his mouth was set into a determined frown. Jeff downed both of the old-fashions before asking the bartender for some nachos. “It’s _na-cho_ day, Parser.” 

Kent’s knee jerked at that _atrocious_ Dad joke. “That was the worst thing you’ve _ever_ said.”

Jeff shrugged, “Just trying to make conversation. Thought I’d try out Scrappy’s sense of humor—he said mine’s too dark and twisty to be of any comfort.” 

It was loud inside, with people milling by and talking to each other. Not exactly a conducive environment for having a private conversation. It _was_ a good place one could go if one didn’t want to be bothered. 

“I prefer you dark and twisty,” Kent retorted.

Jeff looked surprised, “Huh, shit. Alright then.” 

“You never answered my question,” Kent reminded. 

“Lemme get some food in me first, Parser.” Jeff grumbled. “Some of us here can’t survive solely on adrenaline and the blood of our enemies.” 

Kent didn’t make a snappy remark and just waited for Jeff’s nachos to come out. When the man devoured about half the tray, he began to talk. 

“Our contract makes it really fucking hard to file complaints against management,” Jeff remarked with bitterness and then smirked darkly, “The Aces don’t want us fucking up their rebuilding by exposing our dear old Coach for the piece of shit he really is. Would ruin all their hard work, you see. They’d have to scramble faster than they did when you went first, kid.” 

“Of fucking _course,”_ Kent laughed. “They think I’m going to fuck up their image because I’m some stupid drug-addict, huh?” 

Jeff waved the hand holding his fork in the air, “You really _are_ self-obsessed, Parser. Maybe it’s not all about you and your shitty issues.” 

“Sure,” Kent scoffed, “That’s why Keenan fucking laid it on me like I had just killed his wife.” 

“You’re fucking hilarious!” Jeff snickered, “He isn’t married anymore!”

Kent laughed, “I’d be surprised if he was!” 

“Shouldn’t you notice this?” Jeff asked. 

“Why?” Kent snorted, “Because he’s always in my face? I don’t give a fuck.”

“You lucky bastard,” Jeff commented with no envy. “Getting all that  _ specialized  _ attention.” 

“Can’t say the same about his ex-wife.” 

Jeff snorted, alcohol and adrenaline and weariness making him a little more relaxed. He raised his glass and toasted, “To whoever the fuck he married. May god bless her fucking soul or whatever. She had to sleep next to him.” 

Kent toasted. “Cheers to that.” 

Jeff straightened up and began to speak quietly. Kent strained to hear him. “I had my suspicions about management when they drafted you at first and I overheard them earlier… all this shita ‘bout drugs is coming from the front office. Inside the house.”

Pulling back from him momentarily, Kent gaped at him for a few seconds in disbelief. Aces management had those rumors going about him? Why?

Shaking off his shock, Kent leaned forward to speak to Jeff again, intent on getting answers. “Why the hell would they be doing that?”

Kent’s mind was racing as he tried to puzzle out management’s strategy. 

“Double-edged sword, Parser. If you play well, then they can make you out to be the kid from the wrong side of town who worked his way up. Classic underdog slash rags-meets-riches narrative. If you fuck up, then you’re a liability. You get shunted off and they can say you always had drug problems from your fucked up family life and the association with Zimmermann. Surprise versus catering to the Establishment with a capital fucking ‘E.’”

“Is that why Keenan’s been so hard on me?” Kent murmured.

Jeff snorted, “No—he’s just a lunatic. Hasn’t been right in the head since for-fucking-ever.” 

“Have you guys talked about it before? He can’t keep on doing this forever can he?”

Jeff leaned in and murmured slowly, “It’s been a work in progress. Real hard to speak out against Keenan with his coaching record. Martinez plans on calling management to talk about Keenan. He’s also going to pull in a few of the more respected players to ask for their opinion and maybe give testimony but it’s been slow—” 

“—you shouldn’t have to do that just for me.” Kent blurted out, eyes wide. “Look— _f_ _uck._ I’ll take care of it. I’ll play nice with him. Just don’t get in trouble for me—” 

Jeff knocked him hard on the head.

“What the fuck was that for?” 

“For being stupid.” 

“What? You think just cause you’re the new face of the franchise that it’s all about you?” 

Kent whined and rubbed the side of his head. “No—but shit. Didja have to hit me?” 

“It’s not just about you so don’t get your panties in a twist, princess.” Jeff rolled his eyes. 

“Then why are you doing this?” 

“Because it’s been going on for _years.”_ Jeff snapped, “You heard what he called Scrappy today. ‘Affirmative action pick’. Do you know what _he_ needed to do to get here? Do you know what _I’ve_ had to do to get here? To be a player in the most racist fucking sport on the goddamn planet? Do you know the shit I’ve been called?”

“Er—” 

“Go back to Mexico. Wetback. Beaner. Cholo,” Jeff ranted, “That’s the shit I always hear. That’s the shit I have to put up with _._ Don’t even get me started on Fishstick. Do you know why he works so goddamn hard? Why he’s so aggressive with checking?” 

Kent shook his head. For all he knew, Amir ‘Fishstick’ Mishra checked the way he did everything else—with too much effort. He remembered when Fishstick tried to order a hundred flowers to be sent to his fiance Aisha, who was getting her master’s degree from Rice in Texas, and accidentally sent them to the wrong address. 

“Because if he didn’t, then they’d say he’s too weak, too effeminate to be in hockey. They’d tell him to go to medical school or something. Isn’t that bullshit?”

It _was_ bullshit. 

“It’s not _just_ you, Kent.”

Kent felt his face flush. Sure, he was half-Cuban but he didn’t fucking look like it. At least he looked like the other guys on the team. Jeff and Scrappy didn’t and they had been playing professional hockey far longer than he. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. And he _was. He_ should have known better. 

“Shit—” Jeff sighed and then dropped his face into his hands, rubbing furiously. “It’s not your fault but it’s frustrating as fuck. Look—shit’s gonna change around here. Pieces are being moved but it’s happening _slowly._ My contract negotiation’s this year and I want to stay with the Aces. I like the guys. I like the culture. I just fucking hate the higher ups but I can’t do shit about it. None of us can do shit about it right now. So we need _you.”_

“If you guys can’t do anything, what can _I_ do? They want people to think I’m a junkie.” 

Jeff looked at him seriously, “If you prove them wrong, if you be the player I know you _can_ be, the player you were tonight on the ice … they’ll listen to you. After the shit that happened today in the locker room, there’s no way in hell they’re keeping both you and Keenan. You need to prove that you’re more valuable than him. You _are_ more valuable than him.” 

“You want me to get him fired.” 

Jeff paused for a moment, meticulously selecting his words, “I want you to be a damn good hockey player. I want you to get on the ice and prove everyone wrong. Prove that you’re Kent Parson. Not Party Boy Parson. Or Pill Popper Parson.” 

“Jeff—”

“Look,” Jeff’s shoulders slumped, “I know what I’m asking you to do isn’t fair but you won’t be alone. We _all_ want Keenan and the GM out—Martinez has been working with us. He’s got your back. The team’s got your back. Do you have _ours?”_

What a loaded question that was. Did he have the Aces back? Did he want to be there for the team that didn’t fully trust him yet and saw him as a way to make money? Did he want to support Jeff who made him homecooked meals? Did he want to stand up for Scrappy, who had to endure fans from opposing teams doing blackface in the stands? 

The answer was out of his lips before he could even think of it, “Hell yeah, I do.” 

“Okay,” Jeff nodded. “Then no more backtalk. Don’t give them a reason to think you’re working against them. If it gets too much, I can always get Martinez to help schedule therapy for you—” 

Kent snapped, “I don’t _want_ therapy—” 

“Hey,” Jeff held his hands up defensively. “ _I_ got therapy. So did a couple of the other guys. We just don’t let higher ups know, alright? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” 

“I _don’t_ want therapy.” Kent repeated stubbornly.

“Okay, okay….” Jeff gave him a concerned look but did not press. “It’s a lot we’re asking but we need you. We need you on this.”

Life after Jack kinda sucked sometimes. But he couldn’t forget the teammates who were there when he needed it. “Whatever you need,” he murmured. “Whatever you need.” 

Jeff nudged him with his shoulder. 

Maybe he was a masochist. Maybe he was too damn stubborn for his own good. But Kent always loved defying expectations people created for him. From beating up Rodrick in the schoolyard when the bully called him a pussy, to scraping his way up in Juniors to play alongside Jack, Kent would _always_ shake off preconceived notions and surprise the fuck outta people. 

He would do it now more than ever. If management and Keenan thought he was a party-boy who wouldn’t amount to anything, then he would throw the biggest fucking surprise party ever by being the league’s best hockey player. They would focus on his myriad of accomplishments instead of his history with the Zimmermanns (and maybe in the meantime, his achievements would finally fucking warrant a call from Jack).

Today he got _three goals_ today in his game. Rookies getting a single goal in a game, alone, was a considerable accomplishment. Two was even more uncommon and three was exceptionally rare.

And Kent managed to earn three goals. They managed to beat the Sharks five to two. 

Management and the media could eat each other’s fucking hearts out, as far as he was concerned.

Jeff smiled, a genuine one, and leaned back against the bar, “In that case, how do you feel about getting hammered with some of the guys?”

Now _that_ was a surprise. 

“I thought it was just you here,” Kent looked around the bar and saw no sign of the other Aces. 

“They’re outside—probably signing autographs. I told them to wait until I figured shit out with you.” Jeff shrugged, pulling out his phone to send a quick text to the group chat. Kent knew it was received because he felt his own phone buzz. 

Suffice to say, he was feeling really fucking good about himself when his teammates walked into the bar—in a spectacular fashion because they were dramatic fuckers like that—and clustered around him. His linies whooped and cheered and some of them tried to wrap their arms around him as tightly as possible. Kent felt Scrappy give a wet kiss to his cheek and feigned a wince but appreciated the gesture. His shoulders hurt from all the jostling, his mouth ached from smiling so much and he pitied the other bar occupants but he couldn’t recall a moment within the past three months that he had been happier. 

They all came out for _him._

Even better, Alexei grabbed Kent’s bicep as the other guys went to grab tables and pulled him into a hug. 

“You good player. Best player,” Alexei told him, not with the same exuberant, bright grin the other guys gave, but with a smile that was softer, more tender. “Am glad you on team, Kenny.”

“Me too,” Kent preened at the praise and barely managed a reply before he was pulled into another bear hug. Alexei lifted him off the ground and Kent blushed, knowing how it looked. When Kent raised his head from Alexei’s shoulder, he saw Jeff giving him a smirk—it made warmth crawl up his cheeks and coil in his stomach. 

Then their gaggle of Aces managed to snag the booths near the flatscreen TV and he saw Jeff surreptitiously hand the waitress a hundred for the remote. The girl giggled and later slipped Jeff a piece of paper with her number on it. Kent rolled his eyes when Jeff fucking _blushed._ How cliche. 

When Jeff got up to go to the bar, Kent flipped through the channels until he found a recap of the game on ESPN. He settled back into his seat, victory and glory flowing through his veins. He couldn’t wait to hear them talk about his performance. 

Jeff got back with two beers and sat beside Kent. He didn’t miss how Jeff’s eyes flicked back and forth between Kent and the TV.

“Tonight there’s been a lot of debate about if Parson would have still gone first even if Zimmermann hadn’t dropped out,” one of the anchors was saying. “I think his game tonight makes it indisputable that he’s worthy of the first place pick. The Aces have signed an incredible player. A hat trick in his first game. Amazing.”

The second anchor posited, “But who’s to say we wouldn’t have had a better performance from Zimmermann? He was clearly the star player back in Juniors at the Q. The unfortunate case is that we’ll never know the answer to who would have gone first. The hockey world was burning from curiosity to see if Bad Bob’s son would have continued his legacy.”

“That makes me wonder how Bad Bob feels about the whole affair,” a third chimed in. “Parson’s enormously talented—no denying that—but it’s probably very bittersweet to see Parson succeed where Bob’s son failed. Sources claim that Jack Zimmermann is at an in-patient rehab center. Now, none of the Zimmermann family have answered our questions regarding the issue, but it does make me wonder how they feel toward Parson right now. Do you think he was involved in Zimmermann’s overdose?” 

What the fuck? 

Kent’s face blushed as the anchors delved into theories about Kent’s relationship with Jack and his supposed connection to the OD. He tried to swallow that anger when it was barely a seed in the pit of his stomach, and now it grew in his belly until it was hotter than anything he’d ever felt. A raging inferno. 

How dare they. How dare these pathetic dickwads speculate about his personal life. How dare they revel in the tragedy that happened. How dare they trivialize what happened to him, what happened to Jack, like it was as frivolous as the weather outside. They were supposed to be commenting on the game. Why couldn’t it be about the game he played? Why did it have to be about Jack? Why did they have to make him irrelevant in his own damn turf? He wanted to throw the remote at the TV. 

Jeff gave him a long sad look and Kent flinched. 

The sense of vulnerability, of being exposed, seeped into his core. The team had already known, the press made sure the entire hockey world was aware of his sad past, but it still hurt to know they could see him without any barriers down. Suddenly the awareness that everyone was staring at him struck and he couldn’t bear to look around. He tried to turn the TV off but couldn’t. 

“Stop being masochistic,” Jeff leaned down and whispered into his ear. He took the remote from Kent’s hand and changed the channel. “You keep watching shit like that and it’ll fuck with you. Don’t let it get to you. What you did—” Jeff poked him in the chest, _“—that_ shit fucking matters. Everything else is—” Jeff whistled and made a gesture of throwing something away, “—You got your first hat trick tonight and you’re going to get more hat tricks.” He finished by giving Kent’s shoulders a squeeze with his powerful arm. “You’ll be alright. You’re gonna get through this.” 

He hated how calming Jeff’s voice was because he just wanted to burn and burn until there was nothing but ashes left. Once he calmed down, there was nothing left to fuel the fire and he felt more tired than ever. 

“I just want to play hockey,” He admitted sadly, chewing on his cheek. “I just want to play hockey. It’s supposed to be about the hockey.”

Jeff grunted and punched him in the shoulder, “Don’t worry about us. We know you. We know better. Don’t listen to all of that chatter. Just continue to kick ass.”

“Thanks, Jeff,” Kent said, managing to offer him a wry smile. “I’ll pay for your drinks tonight.”

Jeff laughed, “You better.” 

“Cheap motherfucker.” 

Kent expected Jeff to retort but then he didn’t hear anything. Jeff was scrolling through his Twitter feed. Jeff’s face grew more excited as he began to scroll. 

“Shit,” Jeff let out a sound of disbelief and shoved the phone into Kent’s face. “Parser—look at this.” 

> **Daniel Robinson** @puckitup · 30m
> 
> After tonight’s game, the hockey world is wondering what on Earth Las Vegas Aces Head Coach Mike Keenan was thinking putting #1 draft pick Kent Parson on the third line.

Another tweet. 

> **ice princess** @gottadashflash · 15m
> 
> @ESPN we should rlly be talkin abt if iron mike is smoking crack. wtf is he doing w my vegas babies

“Okay, I know I just said not to watch ESPN but we need to turn it on,” Jeff shook his head and frantically began to find the channel. 

“What the fuck—” 

Jeff hushed him and pointed at the TV. 

An anchor was speaking, “—how Parson has been playing spectacularly well in Vegas—it’s incredibly baffling why he’s even on the third line—” 

“—‘baffling?’ It’s not when the Aces head coach is Iron Mike,” One of the anchors snorted and a picture of Keenan popped up. “The Aces would have undeniable chemistry if Parson played on their first line. We all saw it tonight when left winger Jefferson Troy assisted Parson on all three of his goals. But considering Keenan’s track record with the Aces—splitting up d-men pair Xavier Coleman and Amir Mishra—I can’t say that I’m surprised. He isn’t known for doing what’s best for his players or the team—” 

“Now, don’t you think that’s a little harsh? He’s recorded over 600 wins in his career as an NHL coach and I remember him leading the Rangers to their first Stanley Cup in over four decades—” 

The third anchor interrupted, “That was fifteen years ago and we can’t forget his abrupt terminations or quitting or how he pulled Gretzky’s contract with the Blues—” 

“What I wonder is whether or not Parson will have the chance to shine under Keenan’s coaching. It would be a shame to let such undeniable talent go to waste.” 

“Knowing Keenan, he’s probably bent on making sure Parson’s a proven draft-bust—” 

“—but there’s no way anyone’s going to consider Parson a bust after tonight.”

Jeff gave Kent a smirk and nudged him, “I told you that we needed you. Playing speaks for itself.”

Kent didn’t feel reassured by Jeff’s confidence. Wouldn’t Kent’s demonstration of obvious talent bring Keenan’s ire down upon him with _more_ force? He _needed_ the playing time. He _needed_ the chance to show his talent. What if Keenan benched him? What if he got scratched for their next few games? He would lose momentum and opportunity. _That_ was the last fucking thing he needed even if the renewed scrutiny towards Keenann’s decisions was satisfying to watch.

“Er—” Kent’s eyes flickered up to the TV screen where the anchors were still hyper analyzing Keenan’s tenure as a coach and he felt dread slide down his back, “What if Keenan sees this shit? What if he goes ape?” 

Jeff shrugged, “He will. Trust me—he’s gonna hate you even more. But Martinez and O’Malley have your fucking back, dude. And Keenan’s not gonna bench you—not when it’ll make him look like a fucking dumbass—”

“Are you fucking sure about that?” 

“How do you think I’m on the first line?” Jeff gave an arrogant smirk and flicked one of walnut shells across the table, “Because he loves me and praises me to God? No—” he punched Kent in the shoulder, “—put me on second last year. Only moved me up because I was a nominee for the Calder. He fucking hates me and he hates _you_ too. But he hates looking foolish even more so here we are.” Jeff spread his arms wide. 

Kent hissed, giving Jeff a worried look, “I’m a fucking _rookie._ I don’t have the same room to negotiate and play these fucking mindgames with Keenan. I _need_ the ice time—I _need_ to play—”

“You and I make a good duo,” Jeff slung his arm around Kent’s shoulder and leaned in close, “We got chemistry, Parser,” Jeff waggled his eyes in a slightly suggestive manner, “It’s undeniable—” 

“You’re undeniably an _asshole—”_

Jeff’s face shifted seamlessly from teasing to serious and he ran his hand down his face. “Look—your performance is your insurance and if you play with me, Keenan’s not gonna do _shit._ He’s not gonna do shit to you or to your playing time. The other coaches got your fucking back, so don’t start pussyfooting now. With you out there—” he jabbed his thumb to where a replay of Kent scoring the game winning goal was playing on the TV, “—he’s not gonna be here next year. They’re _going_ to choose _you._ Because you’re worth fucking more.”

Kent’s mouth went dry and he echoed softly, not quite believing what he was hearing, “ _I’m_ worth more?”

“You’re worth more.” 

“I’m worth more.” 

“Damn right you are,” Jeff flashed him a grin before getting up from his seat. “And you’ve earned yourself some beer—” 

Kent began to protest, conscious of his media-image, “I don’t drink—”

“This is the _only time_ I’m letting you and you’re going to protest?” Jeff asked exasperatedly. “Are you _fucking_ kidding me?”

“... I’ll take a beer.”

“Fucking G.” 

When Jeff left, Kent idly watched him go and then scanned his teammates automatically. Self-consciously he wondered if they pitied him even more after his melodrama—storming out of the locker room, brooding in a bar, panicking at the TV reel—and he couldn’t tell if they were avoiding him out of respect or distaste. 

Then his eyes landed on Alexei. Alexei was a booth down, crammed into a corner with Matty. He caught Kent’s eye and his face broke out into the largest, most genuine grin ever. Then he raised his glass to Kent in a toast and shouted, “To Kenny, best little player!”

“To Parser! Bless his stupid hair!” Scrappy hollered, getting up on the table. 

Another called out, “To Parser’s ugly hats!” 

“To his hat trick!” Someone added. 

“To his hat trick!” They echoed.

Kent laughed, trying not to fucking _cry_ because what the fuck was this shit, because he wanted to say he didn’t deserve their appreciation or their support or even the position on the team, and maybe Alexei shouldn’t have started the toast, since that’s sorta fucking dumb thing to do but he kept all of it to himself.

The guys milled around the bar later, going to foosball and pool tables, which was a bad idea because most of them were shit-faced drunk and obnoxiously loud. Jeff left a little later when the waitress from earlier slid into the booth, told him her shift was over, and fucking slid her hand up Jeff’s thigh. Normally Kent would have chirped him endlessly for it but Jeff seemed like he deserved it. The Aces didn’t pay him nearly enough to deal with all this shit. 

Kent decided to enjoy himself. He finished his beer, then got up from his seat and went to where Matty, Sully, and Jakowski were playing pool. It was pretty pathetic, though, because they sucked, and Kent could easily whoop all their asses. He grabbed a cue from the stand and reached for a piece of chalk.

“Ladies, gentlemen, Matty,” he announced, opening his arms wide like he was about to take a bow, and he smirked. “Ready for me to whoop your asses?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know there's going to be some controversy over Jeff clearly manipulating Kent in order to get Coach Keenan fired. I'm not to justify what Jeff's doing. It's conniving and cruel to take advantage of an emotionally vulnerable teenage boy who just wants to prove to the world he's not white trailer trash destined to flush out of the big leagues. 
> 
> However, I will say that Jeff is not a perfect person. I am not here to write about Mary Sues. I am here to write characters that reflect real people and, sometimes, even the most well-intentioned, good-natured people make big mistakes. This will come back to bite Jeff in the butt later. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the chapter and let me know what you think!


	4. sugar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kent freaks out, messes things up a little, and learns that life has a way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for usage of gay-slurs.

**October 2009**

Kent, as Jeff promised, moved up to the first line after their home opener. They also went on a roadie, three back-to-back games against the Coyotes, the Ducks and the Kings. Kent got Jeff as a roommate, of course. 

When they first arrived in Arizona, Kent wanted nothing more than to be in New York because it was still fucking hot as hell even at the asscrack of dawn. Perspiration trickled down his back and left his shirt damp and sticky. Frankly, the weather pissed him off more than anything else.

But it was okay because they won two of their three back-to-back games, and Kent scored four times. He got three assists. When Alexei showed him the stats, with poorly veiled jealousy, he saw he was tied for first in points in the league. It felt unreal.

His ribs were sore and fucking bruised from where he got checked into the boards towards the end of the fourth period in their last game against the Kings, but he still helped Alexei score his first goal in an NHL game a minute later, so really, the joke was on them. 

Apparently, the Aces were off to the best start of the season in the—admittedly short—history of the franchise.

His agent Christine Nguyen, who was a petite firecracker of pinstripe suits, tall updo hair, and bright red lipstick, scheduled an interview for him with _Sports Illustrated_ and Jeff woke him up at ass o’cock for what was supposed to be their weekend off. 

He got to the cafe with ten minutes to spare and the reporter was already waiting for him—it was a small, cozy place that didn’t get too busy. It was decorated in the way that reminded him of his sister’s dream wedding Pinterest boards—fairy lights and wooden carvings on the walls with fake flowers hanging from the ceiling. 

**Alexei** (8:15 am): 

_Good luck on interview!!! Will be first to read )))_

Kent smiled at the text and sent a picture of the cafe’s point of purchase display. There were cookies and pastries he knew Alexei liked—the man had a major sweet tooth.

 **Kent** (8:16 am):

_thank u. which one should i get?_

His phone buzzed again. 

**Alexei** (8:16 am): 

_No sweets. I make Russian honey cake, remember. You promise try_

He didn’t remember Alexei ever inviting him over to his apartment to celebrate the interview but went along with it anyway. 

**Kent** (8:17 am):

_i’ll bring over pizza. sound good?_

**Alexei** (8:17 am): 

_Bring pineapple pizza please??? )))_

Pineapple pizza was fucking disgusting so he was going to stick to the regular pepperoni and mushroom. When he went up to the counter, the cashier tried flirting with him. She was young enough to be in college and upgraded his small mocha latte to a large on the house. Partly because he felt like a dick and partly because he didn’t know what else to do, he graciously accepted and tipped her a fifty.

Then he went outside to meet the reporter. They sent a guy in his late thirties who looked impeccable in his suit and tie. Next to him, Kent felt severely underdressed. Earlier Jeff tried to smooth down his hair and fussed over Kent’s distinct disheveledness. Once he would have been self-conscious of his soft flannel thrown over his faded graphic tee and floral snapback. But if he was going to be rich and famous, then he was going to wholeheartedly embrace the level of weird rich and famous people embodied. That meant mismatched patterns and drinking coffee that was way too sweet to be coffee.

“Hey,” the man wore oversized hipster glasses and stood up from his chair to shake Kent’s outreached hand. “I’m Wyatt. It’s a pleasure to meet you. We’re glad you find time in your busy schedule to meet with us.” 

Wyatt did not look glad to be here at all. At least the feeling was relatively mutual. 

“I’m happy to be here,” Kent replied.

Kent sat down in the armchair. He handed Wyatt a latte because he hadn’t seen a drink on the man’s table and that seemed like the right thing to do. Apparently, it was because it got Wyatt to relax immediately and stop eyeing Kent like he was a loaf of moldy bread. 

Wyatt ate a savory pastry, something smelly with cheese and artichoke, and Kent fought the urge to wrinkle his nose when the other man chewed with his mouth open. Wyatt scrawled away on a nearby notebook pad while his voice recorder sat next to Kent’s cup. “How have you been settling in these past few months? Any big things to adapt to, coming from the Q?” 

“Weather was a big one. It’s really dry out here,” Kent joked, and observed the way it made Wyatt relax. “But all jokes aside, the playing field here is completely different. On a whole new level. It took a while, for me, to adapt to but it’s an amazing experience. It’s a true honor to play with and against the best in this sport.”

Wyatt tapped his chin with his pen thoughtfully, “How was the culture different for you? Las Vegas varies quite a bit from Canada, where you played for two years.”

Kent took a sip of his coffee and gave a cookie-cutter but honest answer, “Yeah, it’s definitely been a huge change for me, but it was a good change. People in Vegas are very welcoming. The guys on the team are really talented and it’s really fun to play with them—it feels better than your everyday job, that’s for sure. It’s also reassuring to be around people with the same mentality. We all want to build the strongest, most versatile team and luckily—” he laughed a little, “—groundwork’s been laid out for us. Our goalie’s amazing—” 

“The Aces got a shutout a few days ago right?” 

“Yeah,” Kent smiled. “And our D-line’s really strong too. Scrappy and Fishstick have really good chemistry with each other and the rest of the team. Plus our forwards are all really hungry for points. We all have our eyes set on the same goal.”

Afterwards, they talked about Kent’s move across the country and he made sure to drop a few suggestions for the best hole-in-the-wall establishments. Then they talked about if he missed his Native New York, what it was like to live in Vegas, how the team was coming along this season, what it would take for the Aces to make playoffs. The reporter briefly commented on Kent’s season start on the third line and he tried to answer as best as he could, even if he felt the urge to curse Coach Keenan into oblivion. 

This— _this_ was the part he always excelled at. Where Jack had shied away from the spotlight, Kent didn’t really mind. In fact, he reveled in it. 

Once, when he and Jack went out to a French bistro in Montreal, they had been bombarded by journalists—asking who they believed would go first in the draft. Jack had frozen in the face of the cameras and Kent, cockily, answered, “Who can tell? All I know is that any team would be damn lucky to have either of us on their playing roster.”

Kent never minded the questions the same way Jack did and, over time, he got really good at it. Journalists weren’t jackshit. 

Once they were done with their coffee, Wyatt fell silent for a moment, looking at Kent with scrutiny, like he was considering something, and then said tentatively, “You mentioned that your new teammates are great fun with play with, so I have to ask about that: how has it been, playing without Jack Zimmermann? You made quite the name for yourselves in the Juniors, some even considered you the best duo the hockey world has seen. The Parson-Zimmermann no-look one-timer is fabled so many hockey fans were anticipating a lot of friendly rivalry between you two on the ice. How has it been, playing without Jack Zimmermann after his overdose?” 

“No,” Kent shook his head and he could hear the low hum of his own blood rushing through his veins in his ears. “I’m not talking about him. Ask me whatever you want, about Vegas, about the league but we’re not talking about Jack.”

Wyatt looked taken aback, and he visibly floundered for something to say, and really, fuck him, if he thought he could just come here and ask about Jack, like the rest of those vultures, waiting to tear what’s left of Jack’s life apart. 

Fuck them. Fuck all of them. 

“I’m sorry. I just wanted—” he started, but Kent interrupted him.

Kent gave a withering look, “No. This topic is off-limits. I’ll answer anything you want but I’m not going to talk jack shit about Jack.”

After the interview was over—and it was over quickly, thank fucking God—Kent pulled out his phone to call Chloé.

It rang a few times before she picked up, “What happened? You only call when something bad happens.” 

“I had an interview with _Sports Illustrated,”_ he mumbled. 

“And I’m taking it didn’t go well?” He could hear the sound of a blender in the background. 

“Asked me about Jack.” 

There was a long pause and the sound of blending stopped, “What can I do to help?” 

“How do—” he put his forehead against the steering wheel, “How do I get them to stop asking about Jack?”

“Hold up—” there was the sound of crackling on the other side. For Christmas, he was going to buy Liv a new phone, “Let me ask Chloé—” 

“No—don’t ask her—” 

He waited on the phone before Liv’s breathless voice came back. “She said to have your agent talk to the journalists and set hard limits. Have your agent email what topics aren’t okay to talk about. You could also put out an official statement saying you won’t be talking about Jack’s OD—” 

“That’ll just make it more suspicious. You’re supposed to be helpful.” he groaned. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Liv said impatiently. “Just talk to your agent about the incident and she’ll help you figure it out. There’s not much I can do from here. Either take my advice and stop being a baby or deal with it yourself.”

“You’re a real bitch sometimes. Do you know that?” 

“I wonder where I get it from. Have you made any friends in Vegas?” 

“I told you the guys—” 

“Like outside of work friends. That don’t have anything to do with hockey.” She pointed out. “Like a normal person.” 

“I have you,” he pointed out dumbly. 

She sighed, sounding like he was a child who could not understand her words. “Try to make friends outside of hockey. Maybe it’ll be easier for you to deal with this stuff, in that case.” 

He thought of Alexei’s apartment and the boxes of pizza he needed to pick up. He thought only Alexei would be able to appreciate his poor company right now so he said, “Alright Liv. I have to go. I made plans.”

* * *

Kent picked two Grandma-style pizzas from a small shop. He’s a bit of a pizza-snob although if anyone asked, it was because he grew up two blocks from Juliana’s. It was only one. He skipped breakfast and his stomach was growling ridiculously loud. Jeff was probably going to call him soon to see if the interview went well. Kent had realized Jeff was stupidly perceptive, so he also bought himself a small calzone, filled with sugary sauce, to snack on. If he was going to be interrogated, he needed at least some form of sustenance in his stomach. 

Some part of him considered getting his own place when he first came to Vegas, but every single person who worked for the Las Vegas Aces organization agreed he should spend his rookie season at Jeff’s apartment. Jeff wasn’t a vet but he was the closest to a middle-aged homebody they had on the team if you ignored his tendency to hookup rather than have a serious relationship. But even then Jeff was extremely responsible. More often than not, Kent woke up in the morning to see Jeff sending his one night stands off with some breakfast and a taxi cab. 

It was clear Kent wasn’t the first rookie to stay with Jeff and he probably wouldn’t be the last. 

He wondered if Alexei’s vet was as chill. Kent knew Smirnov let Alexei do as he pleased as long as it wasn’t fucking stupid. Smirnov didn’t keep tabs on Alexei, but also made sure there were prepared ingredients in the house for Alexei’s dishes. Sometimes, Kent would see tweets of Alexei taking Smirnov’s Hungarian wife, Maria, out to dinner. Sometimes, he wondered how Alexei felt living with a couple that was so clearly in love. 

Sometimes, Kent couldn’t stand the sight of love. It made him hide in his room, put on his headphones, blast Britney, and stare at Jack Zimmermann’s phone number, knowing full well no one would answer when he called. Sometimes, he tried anyway and was still left disappointed when he didn’t hear Jack’s voice on the other end of the line. All that was left between them was silence. Not even Bob and Alicia took his calls. The only updates he received from the Zimmermanns was through Chloé's texts but they were relatively useless. She was in college at New York.

Once Kent parked his car outside Smirnov’s house, he pulled out his phone to scroll through the most recent texts from Chloé. 

from: **Baby Zimmermann** (Sat, Oct 24, 12:30 pm) 

_how did ur interview go?_

_liv told me the journalist was an ass :((_

On some days, Kent wondered how Chloé could take it. Liv told him she seemed happy in New York—always out exploring the city or annoying their neighbors with her constant singing. Kent wasn’t even fucking related to Jack and he felt like he couldn’t take it anymore. Sometimes he daydreamed about jumping on a plane to Montreal, wondering what would happen if he went to the Zimmermann’s house. Who would open the door? Would it be Jack, or Bob, or maybe Alicia? He imagined Jack telling him how sorry he was, that he should have called, that he never meant to cut Kent out like that. And then reality seeped back in. 

Jack was still in rehab. Kent still had regular season. He had responsibilities here. He wouldn’t see Zimms for a long, long time. 

Sighing, Kent sent Alexei a text. 

to: **Alexei** (01:07 pm) 

_outside your door._

_open up or i’ll eat all the pizza w/o you_

Alexei didn’t immediately answer but Kent could hear heavy footsteps. Suddenly the door opened and Kent saw Alexei covered from head to toe in flour. 

“What the fuck?” Kent asked, arching his eyebrow. There was even flour in Alexei’s eyelashes. 

Alexei shushed him, “Bad word. Dima have kids at home.” 

Kent sighed. “Can I come in? Or should you get cleaned up and then we can go eat at my place? 

“No,” Alexei shook his head. “You come in, help me and then we meet Dima’s kids.”

“Uhhh…” Kent shuffled the hot pizza boxes in his hand. They were beginning to get moist at the bottom and burning his palms, “Is that the best idea? Are you sure Smirnov would be okay with me meeting his kids? I’m not sure they would even like me—” 

“You come in,” Alexei insisted. 

“Okaaayy.” 

“I just finish make cake,” Alexei grabbed the boxes of pizza from him and placed them down on the kitchen counter. He gestured toward the direction of a room. “You wait in there and I shower, yes?” 

Kent waited on Alexei’s bed for several minutes as the other man showered. Alexei soon came out with a towel wrapped around his waist and all Kent could manage was, “I thought you were going to walk out naked.” 

“Nothing you not see before,” Alexei snorted. 

Kent tentatively said, tongue sticking out between his lips. “At least you’re dressed.” 

“You disappointed? You sound disappointed.” 

Kent flipped him off and then flopped back onto the bed. “What’s up, man?” 

“Sky,” Alexei said. He was pulling a shirt on and Kent kept his eyes glued to the ceiling as the other man shuffled through his drawers. “Dima say I should hang out today. So want you to come over and hang out.” 

Alexei had been living with Dima Smirnov, the only other Russian on the team, for now although Kent was sure that Alexei could actually handle living on his own. He knew that Alexei regularly sent his parents pictures of his nutritious, homemade meals—“Salad and vegetables good. You eat like kid, Kenny”—and updated his older sister on his daily activities. One time, Kent walked in to Alina Mashkov yelling at Alexei over Skype for not folding his own clothes and letting Smirnov’s wife do it. 

After Alexei finished getting dressed, Kent got off the bed to rummage through his bookshelf. There were books on Russian and others in English. In the corner was a used Russian to English dictionary. Kent rifled through it—there were highlighted sections and dogtagged corners—before he grabbed it and turned around. 

“What’s this about?” Kent asked, waving the book around. 

Alexei held one of the pillows to his chest—he did that, the notorious pillow-snatcher. “Sasha send so speak better English. He already fluent. Give me suggestions.” 

“He’s the brother who lives in Boston right?” Kent already knew the answer to that question. Alexei’s elder brother was on CNN the other day for discovering some particle that was apparently groundbreaking. Physics was boring as all hell so he immediately flipped the channel when Alexander Mashkov’s face left the screen. 

“Ja,” Alexei looked slightly downcast. 

Kent furrowed his eyes but didn’t ask about it. He needed an opener. “It’s nice he cares so much about you learning English. All my sister ever did was tattle on me when I snuck out of the house.”

“You little rat,” Alexei said. “Why sneak out?” 

Kent glared at him. He sort of wanted to kick Alexei right now, because he _hated_ being reminded about his height. Five foot ten was a perfectly respectable height. It was nice and average but when he spent most of his day around humongous hockey players, who were built like terracotta stone warriors, and dumber than a block of bricks, it _could_ get irritating whenever they used him as a hand rest. The other guys liked to chirp him about his height and, while they’re not fucking hostile or anything, it felt less light-hearted than when they all called Alexei a “tree”. These guys weren’t going to fucking respect him simply because he was the number one pick by circumstance. If anything, it made things slightly worse. 

Sometimes when his mind wandered into dark places, he wondered how Jack would have handled the chirping. Maybe the guys would have poked fun at Jack for being on daddy’s money with daddy’s name. Maybe they would have stopped when Jack didn’t go along with it. Maybe they wouldn’t have and Jack would have just bit his tongue and popped more pills. Being a Zimmermann was a sore spot for Jack. Maybe it would have broke him even further. 

Kent didn’t want to think about it anymore. 

“Kenny?” Alexei asked. 

“Alexei?”

Alexei cleared his throat. “You seem … you seem mad. Want to talk?”

“I’m not mad,” Kent snapped. He was so fucking mad. The interview was a load of bullshit. 

“You mad.” 

Kent breathed in deeply. “Let’s just fucking eat.” 

They grabbed the pizza boxes and ate in silence. By then the slices had gone to room temperature and the cheese wasn’t stretchy but it was still fucking good so Kent devoured a box. 

He was grateful Alexei shut the hell up and played the TV in his bedroom. They were watching _Gilmore Girls_ which was kinda fucking hysterical for a big-ass and a medium-ass hockey player to watch. 

He could hear Alexei chewing and laughing at the episodes, but he didn’t try to talk to Kent again, so he could go back to sulking and feeling like a sack of shit. Because that’s how his day was going. He should have been happy. He played well. He just did an interview with _Sports Illustrated_. He had a friend who wanted to celebrate those small victories with him. For the first time in months, he felt like he was doing well—that he could finally carve a piece of that hockey legacy for himself. It was big. Everyone had wanted to talk about Kent after he scored that hattrick in his first game a few weeks ago and people had wanted to talk to him this morning. 

He was Kent motherfucking Parson. He was going to help lead the Aces to glory. Or some banal bullshit they would slap onto the _Sports Illustrated_ interview. 

But he couldn’t shake what the journalist asked him earlier. 

“Are you proud of what you’ve achieved in your rookie season already?” Wyatt had asked. 

“What does it take for the Aces to make it to playoffs?” 

“How has it been, playing without Jack Zimmermann?” 

That was a loaded question. How had it been playing without Zimms? Horrible and wonderful. Jack still wasn’t picking up his calls and on some days, when Kent missed the sensation of knocking helmets with him, Kent left frantic, sobbing voicemails. 

“I miss you. I fucking miss you. I would give it all up. Just fucking pick up. Please, don’t do this to me.” He would sob, making sure to turn the shower on all the way to muffle his cries. 

But would he? He made it so far. He was doing so well. The feeling of shooting a game-clinching goal was like nothing else. The warmth that spread to his toes whenever Alexei grabbed his bicep during practice was wonderful. The affection that emerged when Jeff nudged him on their way to the locker room was deep like the sea. 

Was that something he _would_ give up for Jack? Did he miss Jack enough to throw it all away? 

The question was a catalyst to a shitty day. He had been thinking of Jack all day, wondering if he knew how well Kent was doing. He wondered if Zimms wished it was him playing with the Aces, not Kent. 

And maybe it shouldn’t have been Zimms. There was no way of telling if the Aces would have gone for Zimms instead if he had been in the draft. Maybe Kent was supposed to be here. Maybe the Aces _were_ his team, maybe they had been destined to be so since the beginning. Or maybe they weren’t and his success was just a fucking fluke. Maybe he didn’t really fucking belong here. Maybe he should have been in New York right now. 

It’s not like the Aces were going to the playoffs. 

Alexei was still. It was like he wasn’t even fucking there. Kent wasn’t sure if he was waiting for something or if he didn’t have anywhere better to be. Kent knew he wasn’t great company tonight. 

Because the silence was too suffocating, Kent poked Alexei’s thigh with his socked foot. 

Alexei didn’t react. 

Kent looked over his shoulder and saw that Alexei was still occupied with his phone. Probably texting some girl. Alexei was a real ladies’ man, they practically flocked to him wherever he went because of the constant smiles and huggable build. Then Alexei would act shy and bashful, graciously accepting puck bunnies’ compliments. 

Kent had embraced the fact that girls constantly gave him their number and hung around. He would do anything to get rid of those stupid rumors about him and Zimms. Granted, they were fucking _true_ but if anyone ever found out, Kent might as well pack his bags and permanently move into the desert and live with the cacti. 

Kent let out a sigh and looked away, ashamed but too embarrassed to admit it.

“You know…” Alexei began through a mouthful of pizza but trailed off. 

“Yeah?”

“Never mind.”

He moved over to nudge Alexei with his toes, harder this time. “What?” 

“Am sitting here. Have ears. Can keep secret, you understand?” 

He understood what Alexei was saying, but that didn’t mean Kent gave a shit. Well, okay, he cared. He cared a lot. But did he actually _trust_ Alexei? Maybe. Leaning on probably. Did he want to tell Alexei about Zimms, though? The whole story? 

_Yeah, no fucking way._

He hadn’t told anyone the full story. Not Liv, not Mom, not Jeff. Fuck—part of the story wasn’t even his to tell. And … He just couldn’t say it out loud. When he said it out loud, it was … well, then it was out there and he couldn’t take it back and it was so _real._

_But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to tell a friend. I need friends, don’t I? I’m going to fucking explode._

Kent couldn’t bear to look at Alexei right now, because he was _this_ close to admitting he had at least one, maybe two weaknesses, and that was hard enough already. Add gay to the equation and it was a million weaknesses. 

He could hardly admit he saw Jack on the floor to himself, let alone another person. There was no way he could look at Alexei in the eye when he spoke. It was out of the question, so he focused on the ceiling. “I hate it when they ask me about Zimms.” 

“Oh,” Alexei blinked owlishly. “Too personal?” 

“Well, it’s just … I’m not gonna go talk about him. It’s really none of their business. It’s no one’s business.” 

“Right,” Alexei said. It sounded like he was waiting for the rest of the story. There _was_ a lot of story left. 

“He would have been great,” Kent croaked softly. He clenched his hands, feeling his jagged nails dig into the calloused flesh of his palms. It would have been a race between the two of them for the Calder. The two of them facing off against each other for the first time. That was the dream. That should have been the story. 

Except it wasn’t. The story was that Jack dropped out of the draft, went to rehab, got released from rehab, and was holing up in god knows fucking _where._

The story was that Kent went first in the draft and Jack didn’t. 

“Are you still talk to Zimmerman?” Alexei asked when Kent didn’t say anything else. 

Alexei had to speculate because he didn’t know Kent found Jack half-dead on the bathroom floor. He didn’t know what happened. Nobody knew. That’s why they all walked eggshells around him regarding Zimms. 

Kent shook his head, “No. Not right now.” 

“Oh.” It sounded like Alexei wasn’t expecting that answer. “Paper say he have ‘nervous breakdown’,” Alexei made air-quotes, “But am sure not true, right? Paper lie—” 

“I can’t tell you.” Kent sucked in a deep breath through his teeth. 

“I sorry,” Alexei quickly apologized sincerely and it made Kent want to cry. “I sorry I ask. I sorry for what happen.”

Kent’s hands began to quiver so he clenched them harder, to will them to remain steady. “It was really bad,” he began, “It was …” It was the worst thing that ever fucking happened to him. So bad that Kent still had nightmares about it every now and then. Sometimes, when they’re on the road, he would dream about it and wake up in the middle of the night to Jeff shaking him awake. He and Jeff never talked about it and he felt the urge to suddenly spill everything to Alexei. The silence was going to fucking devour him. 

“It’s just frustrating to do really well …” Kent offered hesitantly, “And all they can focus on is what Jack’s doing. I don’t _know_ what Jack’s doing. I can only really talk about myself but they’re not interested…” 

Alexei’s face shifted from concern to recognition instantly. “Understand. Want to know story?” 

Fuck it. He needed a distraction and Alexei was offering so Kent shrugged. “Go ahead.” 

“Alina moving here,” Alexei frowned visibly at that admission. “She coach figure skating. Husband go to business school at mit.” 

“That’s great. Isn’t it?” Kent chewed on his bottom lip. “Your family will be a lot closer to you. I know you talked about missing them.”

Alexei told Kent he intended to go back to Russia once for his bye week that was almost three months away. Kent learned how to manage homesickness and missing people pretty early on in his life, and the string of billet families helped with that, so it was different for him than Alexei who had the fortune—or misfortune—to play at home for juniors. He knew it hit Alexei harder than it hit him, the long periods where it was just hockey and the team. But Kent—Kent knew how to handle that, how to channel all those feelings of emptiness into focusing on the game, on being the best he could be. 

On being someone his family could be proud of. 

The thing was—he always had this silly dream of buying his mom (and Leo) a house in a nice suburban neighborhood, as a way of saying thank you for everything she did to get him where he was now. But even as he looked at listings of homes in Syracuse and Rochester, he knew he wasn’t going to go back to New York once the season ended. 

Liv’s words, “Make Vegas your home,” rang too loudly in his mind for him to do anything else. 

Alexei shook his head, “Not play in KHL like Papa. Move to America to be own person. Alina have two gold medals. Number one for years. Sasha genius. Will be big, _big_ name. Hard to stand out when they do so well. Want to win Stanley Cup. Want to be just as good. But very, _very_ hard if they live here. You understand?” 

Kent _did_ understand. All journalists wanted to know was how great the season would have been if he could have shared it with Zimms. Like even if Jack hadn’t pulled out of the draft, they wouldn’t have even been on the same team. 

Sure, Jack was a big deal. The son of hockey legend Bob Zimmermann, following in his father’s footsteps, ready to blaze a glorious path, ready to continue the dynasty. That was Jack’s story. That was Jack’s destiny. 

Then there was Kent. Little Kent from New York, who had been destined to be nothing but white trailer trash. He was great. Excellent, even in his hand-me-down pads. But without the prestigious last name attached to his name, people hadn’t cared about him. It was only when he ended up on the same line as Zimms that they paid attention. Suddenly Kent was worth their notice.

And then came the draft and everything fell apart. 

Kent couldn’t think about that night, or the day after without feeling the urge to vomit. He couldn’t think about that locked bathroom door. He couldn’t hear the ambulance sirens as they loaded Jack onto the stretcher. He tried desperately to shake off the lingering thoughts. This time, Kent didn’t say anything—didn’t react even as Alexei leaned forward and laid down next to Kent, the touch of his fingertips light on Kent’s shoulder. 

“Don’t need tell me. But I want tell you. You my friend, Kenny. I want tell you. And if you ever want, you tell me, okay?” 

“It’s fine, Alexei,” Kent shrugged off. It wasn’t fine. Not even in the least bit. 

Alexei looked up at the ceiling and whispered, “Sometime I think not good enough to play here. Not score much in games. Only on third line. Not have lot of playing time—” 

“You’re a solid player, though.” Kent pointed out, eyes wide. “You’re a good d-man too—” 

“Not as good as Scrappy. Not good like Fishstick. Hard time with other players too—” 

“Man, it takes time to develop chemistry with other players,” Kent protested. “If you want, I’ll put in extra time on ice with you.” 

Alexei scoffed, a slightly bitter sound. “Coach don’t like me. Don’t think smart enough to understand. Journalists too. Think big, dumb Russian. Not good enough to play with Aces. Don’t add much to team.” 

“You add plenty to the team,” Kent retorted weakly. 

Sure, Alexei didn’t score as much or get that much playing time on the ice but that was hardly _his_ fault. He was a rookie and Coach Keenan wasn’t right in the head. It had a lot of cajoling and pleading from the assistant coaches, Martinez and O’Malley, to move Alexei up from the fourth line and put him in games. Alexei was good—he just didn’t click with the other players and a part of Kent suspected the Aces quick and sneaky style didn’t quite suit Alexei. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t fucking valuable to the team. 

All the vets, even grump Jughead, claimed Alexei as their rookie. Alexei remembered their family members’ names, their birthdays, their favorite songs. He _always_ brought extra snacks for the rest of the team and cheered them up after a rough loss. He was worth his weight on the Aces. 

“You add more.” Alexei pointed out, not bitterly but factually. “You change season, Kenny.”

But it wasn’t _just_ Kent.

The truth was, the Las Vegas Aces changed quite a bit after their abysmal last season. A bunch of the guys left (no thanks to Keenan). A bunch got traded. And then there was him, fresh from Juniors, and Alexei called up from the KHL after being drafted two years prior. The point was, it wasn’t just Kent. He didn’t perform some kind of _miracle._ Even though he led the Aces in goals and points, even though he was a contender for the Calder this summer. 

“You mean something to this team too. It’s not just me,” Kent said fiercely. “I wish they would quit fucking acting like—like I was Jesus in hockey form. Like all we’ve accomplished only belonged to _me_ , for fuck’s sake. It fucking belongs to all of us and it’s not fucking fair that I can’t share it—”

Kent stopped himself because he was going to say he wanted to share his achievements with Jack. He _did._ He wanted this season to be with Jack. He wanted to call Jack during roadies and how he was doing. He wanted to see encouraging texts or pictures of highlight reels. Jack would say something like, “Guard your right side better next time, Kenny,” or “Nice shot. But next time pass it to Troy. He was closer.” 

He couldn’t breath. 

“If you want me go,” Alexei offered, “I go.” 

As if that wasn’t the most ridiculous thing Kent heard all day. This was Alexei’s room for god’s sake. But he was willing to give it up so Kent could have his little bout of melodrama and suddenly Kent really didn’t want him to go. He wanted nothing more than for Alexei to stay and wrap his large, Russian-bear arms around Kent. Right there, right next to him, with his hand on Kent’s back, his fingers tracing absent-minded circles, and his mouth murmuring Russian platitudes into Kent’s hair. 

God, when was the last time someone _really_ touched him? When was the last time someone _really_ loved him? 

He reached out with his hand and wrapped it around Alexei’s wrist, “I want you to stay.” 

“Okay, Kenny, I stay,” Alexei said easily. Alexei scooted closer to Kent and draped his arm around him. Kent stayed very still because he was afraid that one wrong move would make Alexei pick up on the whole ‘I’m a homosexual’ vibe. “I stay. Don’t worry. I stay.”

No one had been this close to Kent in a while—emotionally and physically. Sure, Scrappy and Jeff had let him fall asleep on the couch his first night in Vegas and they even hugged him after he scored a goal but that was nothing compared to lying next to someone like this. To having Alexei’s arms wrapped around Kent, like they would never let him go. Kent, foolishly, selfishly, never wanted it to end and he grabbed a fistful of Alexei’s shirt. 

“I don’t want you to leave,” he mumbled childishly. 

“Kenny, I stay,” Alexei pressed his chin on top of Kent’s head. 

For now, Kent resolved to enjoy the affection for as long it was allowed. 

He eventually fell asleep with Alexei still right next to him, Alexei’s hand splayed on his back, Alexei’s leg thrown over his, not moving anymore. It was soft and warm. It was something he never knew he wanted until he experienced it. 

_You shouldn’t want it,_ his mind repeated. _You shouldn’t want it_. 

This crossed a line that a quick ‘no homo’ couldn’t fix but if Alexei promised he would stay, then Kent wouldn’t question it. This was just Alexei who was always hugging and high-fiving and patting everyone. Alexei let Matty sit on his lap and Scrappy kiss him. It was just who he was—big lovable Russian bear. 

For the first time in a long time, he finally felt like he could let go a little bit. He didn’t have to be First Pick Kent Parson Who Will Do Great Things, he could just be Parse who was a little messy, a little weird, and who didn’t give a shit. 

He woke up a little later and Alexei was still there, fast asleep. Maybe Kent should have woken him up, but he decided to be a selfish ass, wiggled a little until he was comfortable again, now with Alexei properly curled against him, still upside down in his bed, and went right back to sleep. 

It was six pm when Alexei gave him a gentle pat and said, “Kenny, time for dinner. You okay?” 

Was he okay? Maybe. Probably not. 

Kent nodded, “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Alexei said, clambering out of the bed. “Now we go eat dinner with Dima. You meet his kids. I made cake.”

Kent nodded a little groggily. As Alexei opened the door, Kent cleared his throat, “Alexei…”

“Hm?”

Kent wanted to say thank you. He needed to make sure that Alexei knew it meant everything to him that he had stayed, but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. Why was this so hard? It shouldn’t be hard. “I—erm—” Kent bit his lip and took a deep breath, “Thank you.” 

“Is no problem. Now we have dinner with Dima and kids and have cake.” Alexei hauled him onto his feet and pulled him out to the living room to set up the dining table. 

That night they had _goulash_ , which Alexei had been simmering in the Instapot for several hours, and Dima’s two girls—Natalia and Tatiana—made fun of Kent for his abysmal Hungarian and Russian pronunciation. The little one, Tatiana, insisted on playing with Kent’s hair and he ended up with several braids and sparkly ribbons woven through the flaxen locks. Natalia was a bit more tomboyish and liked to run her monster trucks along the planes of his stomach. 

Alexei took several pictures of the girls and tweeted: 

> **Alexei Mashkov** @TaterMashkov · 6s
> 
> @therealKVP you make prettiest princess!!!!

* * *

“I’m told you told the journalist to fuck off yesterday,” his agent drawled into the other end of the line. 

Kent was in the middle of making a smoothie for Jeff. The fucker, apparently, was very specific about how he liked his smoothies—frozen fruits only, two teaspoons of maca powder, milk as the only liquid because fruit juice was a no, and thick enough to scoop with a spoon. He pulsed the Vitamix so he would have an excuse to say, “What? I can’t hear you.” 

Christine Nguyen’s eyeroll was practically audible, “Kent—turn the damn blender off. You and I both know that you’ve never eaten a damn fruit in your life.” 

Okay, that was a little rude. Kent frowned but complied with her orders. 

“I didn’t tell the journalist to fuck off,” Kent muttered, scuffing his feet on the tile floor like he was an unruly child being scolded by his mother. Sometimes Christine had a way of making him feel infantile even though he was nearly a foot taller than her—even when she wore heels. 

“But you used the word ‘fuck’ anyway—” 

“He asked me about Jack.” 

She began slowly, “You two played very good hockey together last year in the Q. The Parson-Zimmerman no-look one-timer is fabled. I think it should be natural for journalists to be interested in how your hockey will turn out without him this season—” 

Irately, he cut her off, “But it’s none of their business. They didn’t care about my hockey. They cared about Jack’s. Besides, Jack’s still in rehab. Isn’t it unethical or whatever?”

“ …. Those fuckers.” She sighed, “Okay, first of all. I’m sorry they asked that. It was a clear invasion of your privacy. Second, are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” 

“Kent,” her voice was gentler than a feather, “I’ve been your agent for years. You were best friends with Jack Zimmermann. It’s okay to feel hurt about what happened to him—” 

“But I’m not—” 

“—I could ask my contacts for a list of good and discreet sports psychologists—”

“—I don’t fucking _want_ therapy,” He snarled a little too harshly. “I’m not a nut-job—” 

Christine the ever-patient, under-paid, and over-worked angel just hummed into the phone. “It took me until I was in my fourth year of my undergrad to finally go to my school CAPS program. Went to UPenn. Very big work hard, play hard culture. I’m sure it’s like that with the Aces—or any hockey team—right?” 

He didn’t reply so she decided to continue speaking and he wanted to feel like she was here to stroke his hair and hug him. 

“I wish I would have gone earlier or had someone told me that it was okay to need mental health services,” there was the sound of something shuffling in the background. “I grew up in Little Saigon with refugee parents,” a bitter laugh, “So they weren’t focused on my mental well being so much as on just getting by. Working multiple jobs doesn’t leave a lot of room for parents to worry about that sort of stuff. But I’m different from that—” 

“You’re not my mother!” He protested hotly, blushing deeply at the institution. She was only a few years older than him. At the most she was twenty eight.

“I know that but … I’m in a position where I’m aware of the pitfalls of poor mental health. Of just pushing it off until you can’t handle it anymore and you’re screaming in the middle of a library and your classmates are staring at you. I don’t want you to bottle this stuff up until you explode. You owe yourself better than that.” 

Kent was shaking by the time her little soliloquy ended and his hand couldn’t keep the phone steady. 

“Kent? Are you still there?” 

“Yeah,” his mouth was dry. “I’m still here.” 

There was the sound of static on the other side. His agent was currently in New York working on some interview with _Vogue_ for him—to help him appear more accessible to the general public and probably smooth over his party boy image. When she had explained it to him, he zoned out but he got the gist of it. _Vogue_ was classy. Party boy was trashy. They wanted to be classy, not trashy. 

“I’ll make sure to send the memo that asking about Jack Zimmermann is off limits for future interviews. For now, just think about what I told you. Okay?” 

He did think about it, for approximately five seconds, and then decided against it. But that wasn’t something his agent was going to hear. 

“Okay, Chris.” 

“We’ll talk soon. Stay out of trouble, Kent.”

* * *

Sometimes, shit just came out of Kent’s mouth. 

This was one of those times. 

It started like this: about five days ago, Scrappy told the entire team that Jeff’s birthday was on Halloween which was kind of funny because Halloween was, admittedly, the silliest holiday of all time and Jeff was anything _but_ silly. 

**What Happens with Aces Group Chat**

**Scrappity Wappity** (01:07 pm): 

_swoopsie turns 21 this yr on halloween._

_birthday bash at my place!_

**Matty Matty** (1:08 pm): 

_Sweet! I’ll bring the keg. One for the party & one for Swoops. _

**Swoopsie Poopsie** (1:08 pm): 

_better not be that viking trash you like to drink._ 😡

 **Matty Matty** (1:08 pm): 

_Fuck you. Finnish beer is the best._

“Beer pong. Second place winner gets to kiss me for twenty seconds. Jeff’ll kiss the first place winner for thirty!” Kent hollered into the mic, which did two things: it caused an abrupt silence to befall the party goers gathered in Scrappy’s nice-ass penthouse, and two, it made Jeff go white and then smack his palm on his face. 

But it also made the current beer pong players, Thrasher and Sully, move aside in favor of the models that Scrappy invited. Apparently Scrappy’s cousin, the one he accidentally sexted, was an up-and-coming model for Chanel and Dior and had been in town for the weekend to party it up. They must have patched their relationship up, if Cassie was turning up to Scrappy’s place. Go figure. 

There was a sudden chaotic flurry of noise as the girls squealed, tittering about, so. There was that. Throughout the crowd, Jeff tried to duck out into the back and his teammates held him back. 

“You’re not getting out of this, Swoops.” Batts declared severely, holding Jeff back by the bicep.

“Aren’t you always hooking up with chicks, anyway?” Griffin added. 

Heads ducked over phones and several of the other players gave loud catcalls. 

“Make sure to kiss the birthday boy with tongue!” Matty called out. 

Thrasher added in, “Don’t be shy about it!”

Fishstick patted Jeff on the back and told him, “Don’t look so sad. You have hot girls who want to stick their tongue down your throat.” 

“But why does it have to be in front of everyone?” Jeff grimaced. 

“You are literally focusing on the wrong things, my dude.” Fishstick lifted a red cup into the air and yelled. “Let the beer pong commence, ladies!”

Already the amount of cups being slammed had Kent’s stomach fizzing and his hands going numb from the nerves. He grabbed Jeff’s cup of jungle juice and downed it. 

Truth be told, he hadn’t _planned_ on getting shitfaced tonight but then he remembered that Jack loved Halloween. Jack loved the costumes and the parties and even handing candy out to trick-or-treaters. It was the one night out of the year where Zimms could be anyone _but_ Bad Bob’s prodigy son—so it made sense why he always went all out for the occasion. When the fact hit Kent, in the middle of talking to a too-tall and too-eloquent, he immediately went for one of the drinks, determined to let the liquor make his brain fuzzy. 

A part of him really hoped none of the bleach blonde and fake tanned girls, now eyeing him hungrily, won the game. If he ended up having to kiss a girl whose boyfriend was glaring at him openly, he might as well pussy out and settle on smooching her cheek. It was close enough. 

But it began to look like the young up-and-coming swimsuit redhead model with legs for days was going to have that honor—everytime she threw the ball, it landed in the cup—and Kent doubted she would settle for a chaste little peck. The round was almost over and Thrasher had taken to commentating on the game through the mic. 

Thrasher looked a little giddy with glee. “Uh, well … folks, I think we have our first and second place winner. Unless anyone else would like to challenge them?” 

The redhead and her friend, a brunette, glared at the other girls near the table. Some of them whispered, looking a little miffed, but didn’t protest otherwise. 

“Then…” Thrasher looked over to Kent, a clear question on his face. Jeff flapped his hand at Thrasher in resigned exasperation, a clear ‘do whatever you want, I’ll roll with it,” sort of gesture. 

Well, Kent _did_ promise and fuck it—he’d never kissed a girl before. Why not have today be the day? He took the mic from Thrasher. “Forget the appletinis, I'm the real sugar, babe!” 

Jeff sighed and covered his face again. “You’re an idiot, Parser.”

Kent scanned the crowd, expecting—well, the leggy blonde to kiss him. But then she and her friend exchanged hushed whispers and it looked like they reached some sort of agreement. Instead, the person coming up to kiss him was definitely _not_ the leggy, tanned blonde. It was her friend. It was the girl Kent had been talking to earlier. 

He couldn’t remember her name for the life of it, though.

She was a tall russet colored woman with protuberant dark eyes and cheekbones so prominent in the light she looked almost gaunt. There was a certain easy grace to her, a flow to her body movements and softness to her gait that made Kent _want_ to kiss her. The smile she gave Kent was a little bashful, a little crinkly-eyed apology and that alone made Kent grateful she wanted to kiss him instead of Jeff. 

Already, the crowd—half-drunk on Halloween juice—hooted and cat-called him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Scrappy snickering as he held up a camera. 

“So, where’s the sugar?” asked the bidding winner. Her voice was soft and British.

Kent laughed, half in amusement, half with nerves. “I was mostly joking.” 

“Were you joking about the kiss, too?” the woman asked, voice dropping to a whisper, and before Kent could sputter a response, she added. “Because I thought you were flirting with me earlier—” she winced, “It’s fine if you weren’t and we’ve had a lot to drink. I’ll settle on a peck or whatever. Don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just wanted it to be you instead of your little _friend—”_ she gestured vaguely in the direction of Jeff, “because he used to date my friend and there’s a certain ‘girl code’ I must adhere to—” she shrugged, “To be honest, I wasn’t even going to play but then Stacey goaded me and I hate to lose. You know? I’m oversharing aren’t I—” 

And what was funny was that Kent did know. He hated losing, too, and had gone to extreme lengths to win before. “Yeah,” he agreed, laughing at how wonderfully candid she was. Maybe it was the liquor. “I know. I—err—I wasn’t joking about the kiss but—” he shifted on his feet, eyes flickering toward Jeff who looked like he wanted to do anything _but_ kiss the redhead. 

Jeff asked Kent and unnamed girl loudly. “Hey, you two want to keep count for me?” 

The redhead’s smile grew to giddy proportions. “Really, thirty seconds?” 

Kent looked over at everyone else who was watching Jeff and Stacey like they were witnessing gossip rag history unfold. Jeff turned to Stacey—who, upon close inspection, had a strong jaw and face full of freckles—and put his hands on her hips. “Impress me,” Jeff said in a manner that was too sultry not to be intentional. 

There was a laugh and a trill of, “I don’t need thirty seconds to impress,” from Stacey and then suddenly Jeff was leaning down to kiss her. 

Softly, sweetly, close-mouthed, no tongue. It was far from perfunctory, but it was polite. It took no liberties except for the agreed-upon press of lips. And at first that was fine, until the announcer and the crowd were chanting, “Ten! Eleven! Twelve!” and Kent’s sides were tingling from the prospect of having to kiss a _girl._ Every soft whiff of breath, every shift of her arm against his, it caused shivers to run down his spine—hot and cold—and when he opened his eyes, Jeff was _still_ kissing Stacey. 

Then, suddenly, Stacey’s hands slipped up to Jeff’s shoulder blades and the kiss grew more urgent—the way she clutched at Jeff made Kent’s stomach do flips. 

“Nineteen! Twenty!”

“You excited to go next?” the woman next to him asked. 

“Er—” Kent was sure if he wasn’t so fucking hammers, he could come up with something suave to say, but all he wanted then and there was to puke. “Uhm…” 

_“Your_ turn, baby,” Stacey giggled, her cheeks flushed from the intense making-out. 

Thrasher came up to them and patted Jeff on the shoulder while addressing the entire crowd, “Whooo boy. Well, _damn,_ Swoops,” he added while addressing Jeff, “Would you say that was a nice birthday present?”

Jeff gave a measured smile, “It was certainly _something.”_

The crowd laughed and cat-called some more.

Thrasher laughed and then turned back to Kent, “You ready, Parser?” 

No—Kent was not ready for the entire world to see him sticking his tongue down some unknown woman’s throat. Not when he didn’t want to kiss any girl. Really, what was _he_ thinking? He was a firm _six_ on the Kinsey scale and that wasn’t going to change any time soon. But it had been so long since anyone looked at him that way and Halloween always brought up memories of the first time Jack kissed him. Jack had pulled off Kent’s stupid two dollar mask and _kissed_ him. A soft, gentle thing but Kent felt like his entire world had shifted. Now, the only person he wanted up against him was Jack. Jack who was turning blue, Jack who was in rehab, Jack who wasn’t answering his calls— 

His throat began to close up and he pulled at his collar. Suddenly the temperature of the room went up by twenty degrees. Has it _always_ been this hot? 

Jeff looked a little disheveled, a little annoyed, and a little weary. His eyes scanned Kent’s face, eyes flickering with some indiscernible emotion, and then he sighed the mother of all sighs, “You owe me, Parser.” 

Then he turned to dip Stacey into another kiss. Somewhere in the background, the crowd was going wild and Kent guessed that videos and photos were already flooding Twitter.

“Hey,” the woman next to him nudged him gently, “Let’s get some fresh air while they’re all distracted?” 

She grabbed his hand and left no room for argument as she led him out to Scrappy’s balcony. 

As night fell in Vegas, the twinkling blanket of stars was hidden by the light pollution in the city. This was when he missed Canada the most—sometimes he would drive out with Jack and they would lay in the back of the truck to watch the blue haze of day lift to reveal the stars. Kent always felt that this was closer to the truth than he would ever know. He wondered, if he should have been a nocturnal being because he always felt closer to the faraway stars, perhaps sensing that he could walk freely without being exposed. To him, the night was when the curtain pulled back, when he got to see the window into the universe and beyond.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she said softly, eyes glimmering in the soft moonlight. “I never got to see something like back home.”

“Yeah,” he agreed awkwardly. 

“Are you alright?”

“I—I—” Kent began, trying to find the words to explain his erratic behavior. 

She shrugged, “It’s okay if you didn’t want to kiss me. You don’t have to explain.” 

But he _did_ have to explain. Because if he didn’t, then there would be rumors. Girls were chatty weren't they? Liv and her friends certainly were. If he didn’t at least come up with an excuse, then the other party goers would begin to gossip—they would speculate that maybe the whispers about him and Jack were certainly true. 

“I just moved to Vegas,” she continued. “Signed with a modeling agency here but it’s not exactly easy,” she gave a wry grin, “I went on a shoot yesterday and none of the stylists knew how to do my hair.” She gestured to her big afro. “It’s not exactly _encouraging,_ is it?” 

Kent blinked and snorted drunkenly. “Stylists don’t know how to get my hair to lay flat. I went on a photoshoot earlier for an interview and they got so frustrated that they said they would just photoshop it. It’s not the same but I get the frustration.” 

She smiled, “I’m Isabelle Turner. I’m friends with one of your teammates, sort of.”

“Who? Jeff?”

“Yeah, he dated my friend in college.” 

“Jeff? _Jeff Troy?”_ Kent repeated incredulously. “Really? But he’s such a…” 

“Fuckboy? Yeah, he wasn’t always like that,” she offered sadly. “It was different once.”

“What happened?” 

“You’ll have to ask him.” She shook her head and sighed, “He never told you?” 

“No—no. It’s—er—” he ran his hands through his hair, “He’s very—um….” 

She gave a sarcastic smile, “You don’t talk to girls much, do you?” 

“I’m not really interested in them.” He said before he could really think his words through. 

“Oh,” she blinked at him owlishly before her face shifted into an expression of embarrassment. “Now, I _really_ shouldn’t have tried to kiss you—” 

“That’s not what I meant—” 

“I suppose that’s why you stared so much at Jefferson—” she continued. 

“Now, hold on a minute—” 

“—just didn’t peg you—” 

“—What?” 

“Bloody hell, I tried to hit on a _gay_ man—” 

“I’m not gay!” Kent snapped. 

“You’re _not?”_

“No—no! What the fuck? Why would you think I’m a fucking faggot?” 

She hardly looked convinced and said innocently, “It’s okay if you are.” 

Was it okay though? It was the same fucking bullshit everyday. With each morning came a quiet sorrow, whenever he saw Jeff kiss a girl after a one-night stand because _he_ would never get to be so open with his love life, and then that was easily overcome by the adrenaline of practice and the ice. The day would move until the afternoon and then panic would set in. If he spent every lunch break with Jeff, then _more_ rumors would sprout up. But if he didn’t spend time with his closest friend on the team … then he was all alone. 

He always felt the urge to run, escape, hide. 

It was no different than when he was younger, kissing Billy Carter one day in the locker room and then pushing him away when one of the janitors nearly walked in on them. Wondering what his church-going, god-fearing parents would say. His brain didn’t understand the passage of time, didn’t know how old that trauma was, or how old _he_ was. Right then and there, with Isabelle staring at him expectantly, he was the same person as he was at the age of thirteen—just with a bit more mileage on the clock. The panic grew stronger with each second as his mental faculties gave way to the thrumming, swirling, drowning sensation in his lungs. He wanted to jump out of his skin and shrink into it. He felt like a child again, shaking and terrified. As if he was being strangled by the air around, his constricted feelings grew. 

“I—” his eyes bulged out of his head and he couldn’t _breathe._ God—if he was so easy for a stranger to figure out if he was gay, then did the rest of the _team_ know? Did they talk about him? What if they blabbed to the press about his sexuality? He was talented but nothing would save him if they knew he was a fag.

Deciding the atmosphere was too oppressive and suffocating to handle— _God,_ could Isabelle’s eyes _be_ anymore pitying?—Kent pushed past her and went back to the party. He didn’t really know what the fuck that meant, it being okay that he was gay. Because being gay wasn’t even a factor in the equation. It wasn’t _supposed_ to be a part of the equation. It was supposed to be like this: he went into the NHL, he got a few Stanley Cup Rings, maybe he found a nice girl along the way, and he would have a few blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids. And yet…. 

“Fuck, I need to go,” Kent blurted. “You just—I can’t—” 

Isabelle’s eyes widened and she tried to reach out, “Wait—” 

He pushed past her and returned to the party. His green eyes scanned the dance floor, where slender bodies clad in tight black leather and scraps of colorful fabric appeared and disappeared inside the columns of smoke from the fog machine. 

Girls tossed their long hair, guys tried to grind their hips on them, and the entire room smelled of drunken energy. Suddenly, Kent’s lips curled. They didn’t know how damn lucky they were—to be able to dance so openly. He needed to get the fuck out of there. 

On his way out the door, he bumped into a large, sweaty body. 

“Move—” he snarled, shaking his arm away from the other person’s tight grip on his wrist. 

A familiar low voice spoke, “Kenny, what wrong?” 

Alexei’s concerned eyes scanned Kent’s ashen face. 

“Just fucking let me go,” he bit. “I need—fuck. I can’t—” 

Kent’s knees felt weak and he left the room in a hurry. 

Kenny, the word felt like a curse, like the final nail in the coffin. There was a gaunt haunt reaching into his chest and ripping his heart out and pain just seeped from it like blood from an open wound. 

“Just let me go,” Kent repeated. His voice was full of disbelief, not quite sure if he could believe what was happening around him. The world was swimming. 

“You need me take you home?” 

“No, I don’t,” Kent spat. That anger which had been mostly dormant throughout the season was alive now, molten-lava hot, searing him from the inside. Why did everyone think they knew how to take care of him better than he knew how to take care of himself? What was it with people labeling his problems and trying to solve them, like there was some broken internal mechanism? His fists clenched. “I don’t need you to _babysit_ me. I don’t fucking need you, stupid fucking—” 

“You drunk. We not talk. I take you home, da? Then I leave. Give you space.” Alexei’s face was scrunched up in pain but his voice remained steady. 

Kent came to the sudden realization that he fucked everything up. On some level, Kent was a fuck up and he always ruined the best things. 

“I—” 

_Shit, shit, shit. I fucked up._

What else could he say? There was _nothing_ to say. He could fall to his knees and recount every moment of sheer pain that Jack’s overdose put him through. He could sob about every moment where he felt as if someone was looking at him just a little too closely and _knew._ Goddammit, someone _had_ figured it out earlier today. He could scream and shout that he was a perpetual fuckup but no one would care. 

Because, ultimately, he just broke everything he touched. 

“Okay, we go home.” Alexei said firmly. 

Alexei grabbed his eyes and Kent got into the car and they went back to Jeff’s apartment. 

It took some hassle and a lot of grumbling, but Kent finally managed to open the door to the apartment. Because it was one in the morning and they were both fucking tired, they crashed on Jeff’s uncomfortable white couch. 

That night was full of restless sleep. 

* * *

Kent woke up hungover and embarrassed as all hell. Alexei got up to leave the apartment in secret, after sleeping on the couch. But Kent stopped him, even if getting up from his bed required tremendous effort. Try as he might, he remembered all the events of the previous night. 

“Look—fuck—” Kent ran his hands through his hair and sighed, “I was drunk and upset and—it’s not a fucking excuse but I’m sorry I treated you like shit—” He sighed deeply, “At least let me warm up some of Jeff’s leftovers for you. It’s the least I can do.” 

He microwaved some _lomo saltado_ Jeff made the other day and they ate the meal in silence. 

As Alexei opened the door to leave, Kent stopped him by putting a hand on his shoulder. 

Nervously, he chewed on his bottom lip and averted his eyes, “You can be mad at me but I just wanted to say I’m sorry and I appreciate what you did. I was just…” he fumbled for a second, trying to find a way to articulate his feelings without sounding like a whiny little teenager, “I had a really shitty fucking day and I took it out on you—” 

“I understand,” Alexei put his hands on Kent’s shoulders and bent down so he was Kent’s height. “You are saying mean things. You very, _very_ upset.” 

“So,” Kent looked up with desperate eyes, “you forgive me?” 

Alexei shook his head, “Not now. You treating me very, _very_ badly, last night.” 

Kent groaned, “I know and I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll do whatever you want—you’re one of my closest friends—”

“Will forgive. Just give time, da?” 

“Okay. I can give you time.” 

Alexei left and Kent looked at Jeff, who stumbled out of his room red-eyed and groaning, with a mixture of heavy eyes and a deep frown. 

Kent looked at Jeff, who was red-eyed and weary. He could see the disapproval stamped onto Jeff’s creased forehead and the grim slope of his mouth, wondering what possessed Kent to be so stupid—to freak out at the smallest mention of Jack, get smashed beyond recognition, offer to kiss a girl to prove his heteronormality, slip up and have said girl figure out his sexuality, and then ruin one out of the two good friendships he had. 

Rearranging his face into something Kent hoped was nonchalant and casual, he sauntered up to Jeff. “I’ll heat you up some food, yeah? You look like fucking shit.” He chirped and then turned away to microwave the leftovers from several nights ago.

“You smell like shit,” Jeff retorted without much heat, taking a swig of the Gatorade they kept in the fridge. “Mashkov take you home then?” 

Kent nodded and slid a plate of food towards Jeff.

“Next time, if you’re going to be an ass—” Jeff hissed around the piping hot rice and meat, “—don’t get drunk and drag me into your stupid shenangians. I didn’t want to kiss that girl and I know _you_ didn’t want to kiss her either—” he held a hand up to halt Kent, “—I’m all ears open, bro, but you’ve made it clear you don’t wanna talk about it. So don’t talk about it. But don’t drag me into your melodrama bullshit and expect me to roll with it, like I got any clue what’s going on in your little head—” Jeff waved his fork around dramatically and then knocked his head in the direction of the door. “And don’t go around fucking up the few friendships you got on the team. Mashkov’s a good guy and from what I assume, you probably said some fucked up shit to him.” 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. 

“I know you are but …” Jeff blew on his bit of fries and tomato, “I’m just telling you this bro. Some of us got our own shit to deal with and we can’t be warped up in the Kent Parson Daily Show all the time, not if you’re not gonna honest with us.” 

“I—” Kent looked at Jeff guiltily, “Do you … do you want to talk about it, then?”

“Talk about what?” 

"Your..." Kent waved, "whatever."

“Eh. That’s another time, Parser. I’m too hungover for this shit.” Jeff shoveled the rest of his food into his mouth. 

Kent knew he couldn’t hide in the apartment all day to mope like he wanted to. Not when they had practice.

Then they took Kent’s car to the Junior Aces practice and arrived with a few minutes to spare. Some of the guys were already in the locker room, changing, and looking they hadn’t quite shaken the hangovers. Kent dropped his bag by the bench at his stall, began to peel off his clothes to get into his under armor, and then methodically taped his stick. Alexei arrived and Kent fought the urge to stare at him throughout all of practice.

It was an open practice, which meant fans in the stands—there weren’t many of them, but there were some, and some even waved at Kent when he skated out. Some girls had a funny sign with _Marry us, Kent Parson!_ written in large, glittery capital letters. 

Kent gave them a thumbs-up and a wink, watched them go all red and giggly. Scrappy nudged him in the side.

“Already holding court?” he asked and waggled his eyebrows like the obnoxious douche he is.

“Maybe that’s because my face doesn’t look like the bottom of a sewage drain,” Kent said, laughing, and Scrappy laughed, too. “Ever thought of that?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Scrappy said and he patted Kent on the cheek. “You are the prettiest princess in this tower.”

Kent tripped him up with his stick. 

Most of the fans hollered at Jeff throughout practice, though, eyeing him like their next meal. It was likely a result of the trending Twitter pictures of his tawdry kiss with Stacey from last night and the fact that he had been shirtless through it. 

Practice ended soon enough and Kent felt a sense of relief when Alexei walked past him and patted him on the back. It wasn’t total forgiveness but they were getting there. 

Kent wasn’t even out of his skates yet when Scrappy found him and hollered. Kent was ready to be punched in the shoulder or ribbed for disappearing with Isabelle during the party but instead he got a Post-It note and a bag handed to him. 

“Isabelle wanted to give this to you,” he said, looking vaguely smug. “I guess that kiss turned out alright, eh?” 

“You wish you got more action last night.” 

“A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.” 

“Because you sent your cousin another dick pic?” Kent joked. 

Scrappy looked around and hissed, “Shhh, _dude.”_

Kent shrugged, “Whoops.” 

“If I ever bring a date home, you won’t mention it to them right?” Scrappy groaned. “Promise? Because I swear to god—” 

Kent shrugged, “I won’t. I’m a little busy to worry about your sex life, Scrappy.” 

“You fucker,” Scrappy pushed him lightheartedly. “Be nice to her, alright?” 

“Aren’t I always?” 

Scrappy snickered. 

The Post-It had a phone number on it. He opened the bag and pulled out several red velvet cupcakes. There was a little note that said: 

_Sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to scare you or say anything to make you uncomfortable. I gave you my number because I want to explain myself._

— Isabelle Turner. 

Deciding that he did want an explanation from her behavior and that he needed to do damage control, Kent called. 

“Hello, this is Isabelle Turner. May I ask who is calling?” It was a familiar British voice. 

Grimacing, Kent replied, “Hi, you might remember me. I’m the guy you thought was gay.” 

There was a pause and then a sound of her breathing through her teeth, “Okay, so. I was drunk and my words weren’t the most _sensitive—”_

“Or rational.” 

“I’m _sorry._ I shouldn’t have gone around assuming your sexuality. I just thought that,” she broke off, “When I assumed you were gay, I just rolled with it but I shouldn’t have—here’s the thing—I—” she groaned, “Okay, so I’ve worked with gay makeup artists before and I think it’s easier for them to be open about it? Because people almost expect it. I didn’t realize that it’s not exactly easy being a guy in the NHL and … It was really an arsehole move of me to accuse you of being gay because that’s none of my business and it _can_ be a big deal to people cause it’s their sexuality,” she offered apologetically. There was the sound of panicky breathing. “I did all of this because—I thought—well, maybe—you know…” she paused, “Maybe we could be friends?”

“You went from hitting on me, accusing me of being gay and now you’re asking if we could be friends?” He repeated slowly. 

“... Yeah?”

“Why not be friends with anyone else? Don’t all you models know Scrappy?”

“Oh,” she laughed. “I dunno. I just—I thought you were fun to talk to before the whole kiss thing and I sorta need a friend outside of my modeling days.” 

“But Scrappy’s a hockey player. Doesn’t he count?” 

“He used to model up in Montreal and New York. Why do you think he knew us?” 

“Wait, _what?”_

“Yeah—” she made an impatient noise, “I’ll tell you all of this later over brunch.” 

“Are you essentially asking me to be your gay best friend and get brunch with you?” 

“You’re gay?”

“Haven’t we been over this?” 

“Well, it wasn’t exactly _clear_ and I was really drunk!” She whined.

Kent snipped back, “Are all models this dumb or is it just you?” 

“I swear to God—” 

He laughed. 

She didn’t speak for a moment before adding hastily, “I won’t tell anyone about your sexuality if you are gay. My lips are sealed. I promise.” 

“If you do, I’ll tell everyone you’re a bad kisser,” he replied. 

“Oh fuck you! You bloody Americans are all so cheeky.” She quipped sarcastically before adding sincerely. “I mean it—y’know. The whole friend thing.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“How about I introduce myself? If—if it’s okay.” She cleared her throat dramatically. “I’m Isabelle Turner. I was born and raised in London and then I moved to Montreal for modeling. I just came to Vegas a few months ago, though. It’s nice to meet you. I make a mean margarita. I love brunch but hate waffles. We should be friends.”

Kent was sitting on the empty bleachers, smiling, “Yeah,” he agreed. “And I’m not going to go dress shopping or do nails with you ever and you have to tell me how Scrappy went from being a model to a hockey player. _”_

“First of all, that’s stereotypical. What kind of gay best friend would you be? We’re going gambling together, darling.” She scoffed. “Second of all, that’s a long story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor little Kent. Always finds a way to lash out at the people around him. But this chapter sort of has a happy ending? Sort of.


	5. ring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kent discovers a new side of Jeff Troy.

**November 2009**

They were scheduled to play against the Panthers tomorrow, which meant they were in Florida. Everything about Florida was wrong, from the humid weather to the people to the traffic and did he mention the humidity? Vegas was hot but at least it was  _ dry. _ He was so beat from the hot stickiness of Florida that he didn’t have any energy to review his 200-page binder containing notes and scouting reports of the other teams. His baby, the result of hours of painstakingly reviewing tapes of other teams and mentally calculating each line’s Corsi numbers, was safely tucked away in his suitcase. 

“It’s so fucking hot out,” he complained when Jeff came into their shared bedroom, dripping wet. Thankfully, there was a towel wrapped haphazardly around his waist. “I don’t get how you’re having sex or even moving. I want to die.”

Last night, Jeff asked Kent if he wanted to come with him down to the pool for a swim. Kent said no. Then he asked if Kent wanted him to wingman so they could pick a nice girl to fuck quickly. Kent said no and then suggested Jeff ask Scrappy. 

Scrappy had only replied, plaintively, “All we do is have meaningless sex. Why doesn’t anyone believe in true love? You’re the sort of person who's not supposed to fall for this stuff, Swoops!” 

However cheesy Scrappy was, he did have a point. Sometimes, Kent had trouble reconciling the two Jeffs he knew: the one who got too attached to the relationships on  _ Grey’s Anatomy _ , and the one who was sporting evidence of the blonde, from the pool last night, on his neck. 

Jeff shrugged and plopped down onto his bed, cracking his neck. “A good sweat is nice in this weather and she offered.” He gave Kent a sidelong look, “Maybe  _ you  _ should go blow off some steam. I’ll cover for you if you need.” 

Because Kent had hetero deflection down to a fucking art form, he said cockily, “Who said I didn’t already?” 

“I’ve never seen you with a girl,” Jeff pointed out with narrowed eyes. 

“Because I know how to keep my mouth shut and girls from taking a chunk outta my neck.” Kent got up from his bed, where he left an indentation on the pile of pillows, and groaned when his hips creaked slightly. “I’m going to find a vending machine and buy a fucktonne of junk food. Do you want anything?”

Jeff looked up from his phone, where he was probably sexting his hoes from different area codes, “Always crave somethin’ sweet after sex. Get me a bag or two of M&Ms.” 

Kent groaned at the mental image. “TMI bro.” 

And yeah, it was kinda disturbing to see dad-Jeff and fuckboy-Jeff but Kent wasn’t  _ that  _ much of a petty asshole so he got a pack of peanut M&Ms because they were Jeff’s favorite. He also got himself a crunchy Nature Valley bar too. 

He stepped into the room and stopped when Jeff let out a loud groan from his spot on the mattress. It appeared Jeff was in the middle of Skyping one of his parents. 

“No, I haven’t been sleeping around.” A lie. Kent wondered if the person speaking to Jeff could see the hickeys. “No—I’m not. What the fuck? I’ve been in this city for less than a day. I’m not that fast.” Also a lie. “Ew—you don’t need to send my roommate noise-canceling headphones. I’m not inconsiderate.” Highly debatable. “Okay, we’re playing tomorrow and then we’re going to Cali.  _ Yes,  _ I will try to visit Aunt Josie when we’re in San Jose.” Another lie. Kent knew Jeff hated most of his extended family. There was a moment of pause before Jeff let out a literal goddamn whine. “I told you. We play in Boston in a week. Alright—” he snarled, “Why can’t she just leave it in the mailbox? Why do I need to see her?” Jeff rubbed the bridge of his nose, “I’m fine.  _ No!  _ I’m not doing this because of her. Who do you think I am?” Jeff paused, “Maybe  _ she  _ should have thought of that before—” he looked up and gave Kent an apprehensive look, “Alright I need to go. It’s late in Massachusetts. Okay, goodnight.” 

He slammed his laptop shut instantly. 

Kent threw Jeff the bags of peanut M&Ms and laughed when Jeff fumbled, dropping them onto the floor. “Your mom?” 

A part of him wondered if Jeff’s deliberate promiscuity was a result of deep seated Mommy issues.

Jeff shook his head, “It’s my dad. He’s calling to check up on me before we go on that roadie next week.” 

That was surprising. Jeff always complained that his mother nagged too much and kept too many tabs on her son, so Kent expected it to be Mrs. Troy on Skype.

“So it wasn’t your mom calling to remind you about the mistakes you’ve made? That’s new.” Kent joked, raising his eyebrows. 

“If she did, then she’d be a complete hypocrite,” Jeff laughed, darkly, “besides she’s not going to do it now that I’m going back home.”

“Why is she a hypocrite and why wouldn’t she do it now?”

From what Kent could discern about the Troys, Jeff’s mother never let her son forget anything remotely stupid he did. It was clear from the way a dark look flashed over Jeff’s face momentarily before evaporating. 

“She was a hippie. Smoked pot. Protested Vietnam…” Jeff grimaced, furrowing his heavy eyebrows, “Half-nude too.” 

“Why is she suddenly going to be nice to you then?” Kent asked conversationally. 

Jeff shrugged and made a face, “Let’s not talk about my mom in her hippie-days.”

He didn’t miss the way Jeff avoided the question but didn’t dig into it. “Aren’t your folks public school teachers?”

“Professors. Teach at BU,” Jeff corrected blandly. “Mom teaches International Law. Dad’s a psych professor.”

Kent sat down on the mattress and opened his granola bar. He offered some to Jeff because he wasn’t a total dick and his mom raised him right. Jeff shook his head. 

“Shit man.” Kent mumbled through a mouthful of sweet granola.

“Yeah,” Jeff mumbled, chewing through his M&Ms before continuing. “Wanted me to become some kind of lawyer or researcher. Real disappointed when I dropped out of Notre Dame. Thought I just went for the academic scholarship so they wouldn’t have to pay seventy grand for me. Dad’s okay with it now. He just gets worried. Sends me weird psych articles on hookup culture, sex and intimacy and breakups—” Jeff hastily popped some more M&Ms into his mouth, “You know?” 

Kent thought about his own father, who left his mom the day he started preschool, leaving them with a crappy apartment and a few unpaid debts. He was only five at the time. 

He still remembered the morning he woke up and realized his father was gone for good this time, not just for a few days, or weeks, or—one memorable occasion—a few months. Grandpa Joe came to live with him soon after that because his own goddamn son had abandoned him too. 

Neither of them, Mom or Grandpa, had cried—not over Benjamin Parson and his drug addiction, not where Kent or Liv could see, or maybe not ever—but Kent sure as hell had cried. He bawled so goddamn hard the neighbors called social services, thinking he was being abused. He asked if Daddy would be back to take him to the park or if Daddy was going out to buy them presents. Grandpa Joe took them out to the ice rink to distract him from the fact that his dad wasn’t coming back. 

Sometimes Kent envied his little sister for being only three and a half at the time and thus too young to truly remember their father. At least she hadn’t needed to hold out hope that dad would come back eventually. 

Ben got in touch a few times over the years. When Kent was eleven, Ben asked to meet Kent—and only Kent—at some diner. Maybe the fact that Ben hadn’t remembered to include Liv, his other child, should have been a red-flag. But Kent had been too thrilled about the chance to talk to his dad again (because maybe Dad had been on an adventure all these years, maybe dad moved because of a job across the country, maybe dad hadn’t just up and abandoned them) to notice. 

The day of, Ben hadn’t even bothered to fucking call and say he was too trashed to show up. Kent sat at the booth, alone, for over an hour before walking up to the counter and asking to to use the phone. He called Mom first and then Grandpa Joe because she was at work and hadn’t picked up. When neither of them answered the phone, he left the diner to go catch a ride on the subway with the meager $1.50 of unused lunch money in his pocket. That’s when he saw Leo—his mother’s new boyfriend—sitting out on the bench outside in the cold, waiting patiently. Leo had dropped him off and promised not to stick around, because Dad said he would take Kent home later. When Leo spotted Kent standing on the sidewalk, cheeks ruddy from the cold and hurt, he pulled Kent into a hug and let him wail onto his shoulder about how fucking unfair it all was. They never talked about it but Kent was much more receptive to the man afterwards. 

“Yeah, I know,” Kent responded truthfully. He was sure the rest of his family knew about it but they didn’t bring it up to spare him so the only person he told about that night was Jack. Jack, who hadn’t been returning Kent’s calls. Jack, who shut him out completely, and wasn’t that funny, the way things turned out. Kent blinked rapidly, trying to shake the image from his head. “Got any grandparents?” 

Jeff scowled. “Yep and they’re the whitest bread people you will ever meet. Country club and cocktail parties and communist bashing. They’re also racist too.” His dark eyes flickered toward Kent enviously. “You’re lucky your grandparents are chill.” 

Last week, Jeff had walked out of the hotel bathroom, naked, and complained about how the tub was filthy. Kent had cackled loudly when Jeff dropped to the floor and crawled out of the room as Grandpa drawled, “I can still see your naked ass, son.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t meet the other set here in Miami. They’re super religious.” Kent shook his head fondly. 

Jeff hummed noncommittally. “You gonna see them soon?”

“Visiting them tomorrow after the game.” 

“Any other family coming to watch you play anytime soon?” Jeff asked then, and Kent threw himself back onto the comforter to lie flat on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. 

“They said probably not,” he shrugged. “Mom’s a teacher and she needs her weekends away from kids, you know? Leo’s a firefighter so he’s always working and Liv has her classes. They’ll try to make it when we play the Rangers. But they’re definitely coming here for Christmas.”

“Hope they’ll be able to make it.” 

“Me too.” 

Jeff dropped his head and mimed a prayer upward, “My mom’s coming to see us when we play the Bruins and when we’re in New York.”

“Not looking forward to seeing her?” 

“My mom’s fine. It’s the other stuff that comes along with going back to Boston that sucks. I’m so glad I live a million miles away.” Jeff glowered. 

“You got an arrest warrant in Boston or what?” 

“Worse.”

* * *

After they beat the Panthers, Kent visited his maternal grandparents which included a lot of scolding from Abuela Elena for his weight loss and trying—and failing—to keep up with Abuelo Osvaldo’s grand tales of an adventurous youth in Spanish. He left with several boxes of congratulatory homemade food and more promises to visit them soon. 

He Skyped with his mother later at night. She looked tired, the way she usually did, but at least she wasn’t working overtime. No need to teach during the summer in an unventilated, unair conditioned, shitty public elementary school for extra cash. 

“We miss you a lot, baby,” she said, her face grainy on Kent’s screen. “I wish you could make it for Thanksgiving.” 

He had wanted to fly to New York for Thanksgiving but he had a game the day before and would need to catch the red-eye flight to get there. And there was the fact that he also had a game the day after too. In the end, his family decided the hassle wasn’t worth it and told him to stay in Vegas. They would mail him sweet potato pie—because pumpkin was overrated— and more empanadas as a consolation. 

“How have you been?” she asked then, and Kent felt like he was in his first year at the Q, missing his mother.

He smiled tightly. “I’m good. Keeping busy. The schedule is pretty crazy.” 

His mother looked at him with the same sort of scrutiny that used to make Kent want to tell her everything, because he was so convinced she could see right through him. “Chente, mijo, don’t lie to me,” she demanded in soft Spanish. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week. I know you work hard, but you shouldn’t look so exhausted.”

He sighed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his face with his open palms. “I’m fine.” 

“Chente…”

“Okay,” his voice broke and he bowed his head, “Okay, you wanna hear the truth, Mama? I’m not fine. I’m here, on the other side of the fucking country, and you’re over there, and Jack isn’t talking to me, and I fucking found him, and I can’t forget how he looked, and I was with him on the way to the hospital, and now he won’t even talk to me.” Now that he started, he had no idea how to stop, and the words tumbled out, one by one. “And he was—we were… you know, right? I never told you, but you knew, right? That he and I—” He wanted to cry. He never really said the words to his mother. He always assumed she knew and chose to let him be, the way she would if he only liked girls. “You knew that we were … sleeping with each other, right? Mama?” 

She nodded, quickly, pressing her lips together in a frown. “I know he’s important to you, mijo,” she said slowly. “That you’re very upset about what happened to him.”

He pressed the hells of his palms to his eyes and breathed shakily. He needed to get the words out, otherwise it was just gonna fucking eat him up from the inside. But he couldn’t, because if he said it out loud, then it would be real. He always said it to Jack and, though Jack never repeated it, they knew. At least that’s what Kent thought. Now—now he wasn’t sure Jack ever loved him at all. Wasn’t that the worst?

“Chente, you can’t destroy yourself over this boy,” his mother offered emphatically. “You need to take care of yourself first, mijo.”

Kent kept his head propped against the wall, looking up at the ceiling instead of his mother's face, because it was easier when he didn't have to see the worry in the lines around her mouth and eyes. “I know, Mama. I’m trying.”

When he looked back at the screen, his mom looked like she was on the verge of tears, “Maybe…” she started off meekly, “Maybe it was a mistake letting you leave the house so soon. You were only fourteen and—” her voice broke off and she sniffled. 

“Mama, it’s not your fault. I wanted it.” 

“But then none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t have been so far away and we could have taken care of you. None of that nonsense with that  _ boy,”  _ she waved her hand angrily, “would have happened and you’d be normal and well—” 

Kent snapped back, his throat tight, “What the fuck did you mean by that?” he snarled, running his hands through his hair. “Whaddya fucking mean?”

“Don’t you take that tone with me Kenneth Vincente Parson—” 

“Whaddya mean ‘nonsense’? Is that what you think it is? A load of shit? The fact that I’m gay and I’m in l—” He stopped himself before he could finish the sentence. 

There was nothing but silence between the two of them for several long moments before Kent broke it, desperately trying to decipher what she just said. Didn’t she understand how devastating it was to hear those words? To have her trivialize his pain and throw it back into his face? It wasn’t  _ nonsense  _ because if it was, then why did it hurt so damn badly? 

“Do you mean you think I’m not right?” his throat began to close up, “What are you trying to say, Mama? I’m your son, aren’t I?” 

When he looked back at the screen, his mother just sighed, “Chente…” 

Kent decided he had enough and slammed the laptop closed. 

* * *

A few days after they beat the Panthers, a reporter asked Wolfie. “Wilson, in the few weeks since Kent Parson moved up to your line and started playing with you and Jeff Troy, you have been unstoppable, and attendance has gone up by almost 20% at home games. Are you surprised by this turnaround?” 

“Not at all,” Wolfie ran his hand down his chest, making sure his tie was impeccable because that’s how Wolfie was. Before the interview, he had done three check ups on Kent and Jeff to make sure their cufflinks were put on correctly. “We have good chemistry on and off the ice. Makes sense to me.” 

“You sound pretty confident considering a month ago you were at the bottom of the league.” The reporter commented. “What do you have to say about this, Jeff, since you’ve been with the Aces your entire career so far?”

“It is what it is,” Jeff told the reporter flatly. It was entirely unlike himself. Usually, Jeff fielded the questions or answered them thoughtfully. He never outright gave them such a weary answer, unless they were unreasonable, and that was why the PR office always chose him to do the interviews. 

Wolfie and Kent shared a brief glance. 

“What can we say?” Kent interrupted, spreading his hands in a ‘what can I do motion’, “except that in Vegas, the house always wins.”

They beat the Oilers by three points, and on the way to the bar, the taxi driver let Kent play his pump-up playlist though not as loud as he would have liked it. All his teammates groaned when more Destiny’s Child came on. 

“The house always wins,” Scrappy mocked in a deep voice next to Kent. Because of the interview, both Scrappy and Jeff decided to stick him in the middle seat so he was sandwiched between two extremely large hockey players. 

“Nah,” Wolfie said in the front, smiling through the rearview mirror, “Parse’s voice is higher.” 

“The house always wins,” Scrappy tried again in a poor falsetto. 

“Hah!” Wolfie slapped the dashboard. “Sounds just like you. Scraps, say it like Mashkov would.”

“Ze house alvays vin,” Scrappy mocked, nailing the accent. 

“Yuck it up, boys,” Kent smirked, “Being the face of the franchise—” 

Scrappy and Wolfie groaned in unison. 

“—I said, being the face of the franchise, it’s up to me to come up with dope catchphrases.”

“You didn’t invent that one,” Scrappy quipped with a pointed expression.

“I popularized it.”

“Sure, sure.” Kent’s eyes flickered toward Jeff who hadn’t said anything the entire ride and looked like he hadn’t been listening to them at all. He was gazing out the window, one hand propped under his chin, the other scratching at his ring finger. The nightlights of the Strip struck the dark brown of Jeff’s hair, making it gleam. 

Jeff shifted his head. If he was surprised to see Kent staring, he certainly didn’t show it. His eyes flickered up and down Kent before returning to the window, disinterested. It wasn’t like Jeff to be apathetic—Kent expected Jeff to make a dark joke, one that bordered on inappropriate. Something like, “Parson won’t be the face of the franchise anymore if they find out he’s about a week away from doing something traumatic to his hair.” 

When they got out of the taxi, Kent waited until both Scrappy and Wolfie were out of the car. 

“Hey, Jeff?” 

Jeff didn’t respond but turned his head around. 

“You know that all this face of the franchise crap is bullshit, right?” Kent asked worriedly. Maybe Jeff was angry because the reporters gave Kent most of the credit for their recent wins. “You’re one of the best forwards I know and you’ve got nearly as many points as me—” 

Jeff sighed and put his hand on Kent’s shoulder, “The boys may be collectively dense as a bag of rocks, but we know you. You wear your heart on a sleeve, Kent.” 

Sometimes, he wished  _ Jeff  _ wore his heart on his sleeve. Why was it so damn hard to read those dark eyes?” 

“Okay?” Kent shuffled his feet. 

“It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that you put the team first. We know.” Jeff shrugged nonchalantly. “Don’t worry about it.” 

But how couldn’t he worry when Jeff’s eyes were so far away?

* * *

During practice Kent cut through Scrappy and Fishstick, put his stick out, and sent a clean pass from Jeff straight into the net. 

“Yes!” He grunted, and a second later, he held out his hand expecting Jeff to come barreling into him. Jeff didn’t but at least Kent’s ribs were practically crushed from the hug he received from Wolfie. 

It was just a practice scrimmage, and maybe they shouldn’t be hugging, scratch that they  _ definitely  _ shouldn’t have been hugging from the way Coach Keenan glared at all of them, but it was good to see results. Plus their liney liked to celebrate and hug like that, even if Jeff was a little grumpy about it. 

“Quit celebrating and meet Harrison at the dot!” Coach Keenan snapped and Kent met Chessy at the dot after sticking his tongue out behind Keenan’s head. The other teammates muffled their laughter into their gloves.

“You need to focus or else you won’t win,” Jeff barked irately when Kent skated past him.

He won the faceoff even if the way Jeff talked to him stung a little. See, Kent liked having Jeff on his line. Jeff was more of a natural playmaker than Wolfie and he brought out the same physicality that let Kent know someone big had his back on the ice. Their d-men, Scrappy and Fishstick, did most of the work protecting Kent but there was something about the way Jeff’s eyes saw everything on the ice that made it easy for Kent to be just a little more impulsive, a little more reckless. Jeff also adapted easily to plays where Kent set him up to score as well, didn’t just send the puck back. 

Kent loved that too. He always kind of missed using his ability to see how things would unfold during a game, maybe that talent was a byproduct of the endless amounts of chess games played against Grandpa Joe, but it was nice not to have to be the one who darted in at the last minute to score. He  _ liked  _ being a playmaker too and suddenly he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something fundamentally wrong about Jeff at the moment. 

Jeff played well with them on the ice. Their chemistry was there. But the camaraderie wasn’t. 

“Quit fucking around, Parser,” Coach Keenan yelled as they moved off the ice, later. “You aren’t as good as you think you are. Don’t fucking celebrate now.” 

Kent nodded, knowing the other coaches didn’t agree with what Keenan had to say. When they were all dismissed, Kent gave Wolfie a fistbump and frowned when he saw Jeff headed off the ice before he could do the same. Their fistbumps, after each practice, were basically tradition at this point. What the fuck?

“We’re going to fucking kill it out there,” Kent said into Jeff’s ear as they changed in the locker room. 

Jeff looked up from his seat on the bench, surprised, and then replied, “Fuck yeah.” 

At that, Kent held his hand out for a fistbump and Jeff returned it wholeheartedly. 

When he thought Kent wasn’t looking, Jeff immediately went back to brooding.

* * *

There was this bar they went to, a run down place with sticky menus and yellow lighting. But they had the best tap beer in the entire city and the place was discreet enough that none of the Aces would need to worry about running into fans. It was their obligatory after-practice bar. He went with a few of the older guys, Wolfie and his wife Jasmine who everyone drank for because she was pregnant, and some of the younger ones too. 

Kent was careful to sit next to Scrappy and Jeff, but nearly groaned when Matty and Fishstick slid into the booth. Now he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with Jeff in privacy. It wasn’t as if he didn’t  _ trust  _ Matty and Fishstick—he just didn’t think either of them would have anything particularly insightful to offer. That seemed to be Jeff’s forte. 

Matty was talking about some charity event he was probably doing next week. Something to do with kids and Matty was fine with children for no more than five minutes, but this sounded like it would require a little more from him. 

“What the fuck do I bloody do?” Matty groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “Ugh, I swear everything I hang out with kids, we stare in silence until I try to distract them with my singing.”

Fishstick snorted, taking a long gulp of his beer, “And now you’re paying for these little kids to get counseling. Maybe try a new tactic, huh?”

Kent perked up and mentioned the charity event he did with kids a few weeks ago, part of his deal with his agent to revamp his image. “Matty,” he smiled slowly, “dude. Tell them about your worst injuries. Kids are sadistic like that. This one girl wanted to know how I skated through a sprained ankle during a game back in Juniors.”

“Big word, Parser,” Scrappy chirped. 

Matty and Fishstick immediately began making a master list of their worst injuries and Kent let Scrappy pull him into a conversation with Jeff. They were talking about movies and music with Scrappy describing the Jay-Z concert he went to last summer.

“How cool was it?” Kent asked, not particularly interested. He kind of wanted to order more beer, but Scrappy was really excited about telling this story and Kent didn’t have the heart to interrupt him.

Jeff didn’t have the same issue—he flagged down the server two minutes into Scrappy’s narration and asked for another glass. Normally, he ordered for the entire table but he didn’t. Kent wished he didn’t notice these things, but these mannerisms were so innately Jeff that he couldn’t help it. It was too bad Jeff was texting furiously on his phone and frowning otherwise 

“Let’s get some for the entire table,” Kent told the waitress and then turned back to Scrappy. “Who are your favorite rappers?” 

At that, Scrappy’s face lit up and he happily delved into another impassioned monologue. Eventually, Scrappy got tired of talking about himself and asked Kent the same question.

Kent didn’t listen to rap. Or he hadn’t before he started living with Jeff. Before, back at the Q, he only ever heard it when his teammates played in it or when it came on the speakers at parties, but he sure as hell hadn’t been able to name more than four rappers off the top of his head. If the team went through his Spotify list, they would find no more than three rap songs he liked to listen to. “I like Jay-Z, Kanye …” he paused for a bit, thinking about the new rapper Jeff introduced him to last week. “Jeff showed me J.Cole’s mixtape a while ago. It’s good stuff.” 

Scrappy whistled lowly. “Here I thought you were completely hopeless, Parser.” He dramatically wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eyes, “My baby has some taste after all. No more trashy pop.” 

“I still like Taylor Swift more.” 

“Aaanndd you’ve lost it,” Scrappy threw his head back. 

His eyes flickered over to Jeff, expecting a quippy remark or some form of bragging, but Jeff was engrossed with his phone. 

“Boo,” Kent grumbled, and paused to thank their server as she arrived with the beers. “I  _ know  _ you listen to TLC. Don’t even front, man.”

Eventually, they started a game of pool. He wasn’t too sure why Jeff didn't play—the man never shied away from beating Scrappy’s ass—but Jeff sat out with a rueful, “Sorry. I don’t want Scrappy throwing another tantrum when I beat him.” 

After a few rounds of pool, with both Fishstick and Scrappy causing a scene by arguing over who won, Kent returned to the booth and slid next to Jeff. 

“You need something?” Jeff asked. He sounded a bit grumpy but smiled when Kent nudged him in the shoulder. 

“One question,” Kent reached over and ate one of Jeff’s fries. “Who’re you texting so much that you’d miss out on kicking Scrappy’s ass?” 

Jeff retorted reflexively, “Your hot sister.”

“Fuck you.” Kent tried to kick Jeff in the shin but missed and ended up hitting the metal leg of the table instead. “Ow! Fuck—” 

But at least that got Jeff’s attention and he put his phone back into his pocket, “Anyway—ABBA or Wonder Girls? Because I know for a fact the only rap you listen to is what’s on my playlist.” 

Kent felt weird, but he was smiling. Now  _ this  _ was more like it. “I dunno. They both have some classics. What do you think?”

“Bro, do I look like I listen to either?” Jeff leveled an incredulous look. 

“Err—” 

“One artist. For the rest of your life, what would it be?” 

“Uh.” Kent was a little embarrassed to admit how horrifying it was that Jeff saw through his conversation so easily. “You know, I love Sunmi but how am I supposed to go the rest of my life without listening to some of ABBA’s songs again? It’d be like torture.” 

Jeff started humming Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! after that and nudged him with his knee, “What would my rookie be without an ABBA medley performance? A really, really out of tune performance.”

“Your ringtone is Bon Jovi.” The trepidation he felt was slowly seeping out of him, the way air leaked out of a balloon with a small hole. “You know Chloé was the one who introduced me to K-Pop. She came home one day and said we needed to listen to it. Subjected us to boy bands for a week.” Jeff raised his eyebrows. “But then she made up for it by getting me tickets to see Britney in Montreal this year. It was awesome. I’m not sure what I did to deserve her.”

“Oh my god, who do you not deserve?” Matty asked, appearing suddenly next to their booth with Scrappy and making Kent jump. “Parser, are you dating?” he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Jeff.  _ “You’re  _ not trying to set him up, are you? Because after that last fiasco in April—” 

Scrappy laughed, cutting Matty off intentionally. “How’s Izzy, Parser?” 

“I  _ told  _ you. Izzy’s just my friend.” Kent snapped, a little too fast. Too frustrated. He needed to sound casual, like he was hooking up with random girls but not dating, or like he might have been keeping his relationship quiet. Flipping out like this created suspicion and it was already bad enough that Jeff noticed he never brought girls home, “I was talking about the time I went to a concert with Chloé.”

“Chloé?” Matty’s eyes lit up. “Chloé Zimmermann? The girl who toured with Alicia Keys last summer? I saw her in Rotterdam. Artists never tour in Finland,” he grumbled before asking excitedly. “That’s sick. Mate, do you still talk to her? If she took you to a concert, that means you have a chance. Do it for us all, bro. I wanna meet Alicia Keys.” Matty practically started salivating. “Hey, Jeff? Don’t you know her too?” 

Kent wanted to ask Jeff how the hell  _ he _ knew Chloé but Jeff spoke up first, “We just follow each other on Twitter and Instagram. It’s not that cool, dude.” He got up from his seat and nodded at them all, “Imma get some fresh air. It’s stuffy in here.” 

They all waved him along and when Jeff was finally out of their earshot, Matty turned to Kent and told him, “Scraps and I saw him get Bad Bob’s daughter’s number at the NHL awards last year.” 

There were so many things wrong with Chloe being referred to as Bad Bob’s daughter instead of Chloe in Kent’s head but he couldn’t focus on that. 

_ “What?”  _ Kent nearly jumped out of his seat. Of all the women in the world to hook up with, Jeff had to pick  _ Chloé? _ She was three years younger than he was. 

Matty waved off his concerns. “Jeff was still with Val at the time. I don’t think it was like that. Otherwise, the two of them broke up for reasons that Jeff didn’t tell me—” 

“I think you should be more worried about the fact that the guy from the Queer Eye tried to hit on you via Twitter,” Scrappy interrupted stiffly. 

“Oh my god, don’t make me think about that,” Matty cried out and then slammed his head on the table. “I’m never going to live that down! My mummi texted me that tweet too.”

* * *

The day before they were headed out to the East Coast, Kent went to the rink early to get a drug test after practice. After the last interviewer asked him if he was visiting the Strip and doing coke, not in those words exactly it was definitely implied, Kent offered to get tested bi-weekly for drugs if only to give management peace of mind. What did it matter that he was actually there early to get tested for drugs instead of practice? He was the only one who went to the rink early, so no one was there to question it. Only when he arrived, he found Jeff was already there beating the shit out of a punching bag and grunting heavily. Kent walked up behind Jeff, took a long look at his roommate, and then an even longer one because he’d never seen Jefferson Thompson Troy so clearly out of composure. 

He tapped Jeff on the shoulder and had to duck when he nearly got socked in the face. “Whoa!” He held his hands up as Jeff relaxed and then pulled the earbuds out of his ear. “Is that Pink _ Floyd?”  _

“What?” Jeff crossed his arm over his chest and looked mildly miffed. “It’s good music—classic. Better than Britney.”

“I-I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. You didn’t seem like a rock sort of guy…” 

Jeff shrugged, “Neither did you. Yet here we are—” Kent snatched Jeff’s iPod out of his hand, “Hey!” 

“Black Sabbath. Queen. Rolling Stones.  _ Blues Brothers?  _ What the hell? That’s not exactly work-out music,” Kent remarked and then instantly regretted it when Jeff grabbed his iPod back with a huff. Jeff didn’t even bother chirping him. Instead, his friend’s face soured even further. “Bad night, Jeff?” Kent asked tentatively and it was light, like he was joking. But judging from the way Jeff’s expression didn’t change—Jeff didn’t fall for the opening. 

Jeff sighed and then held the bag with one hand, then shrugged his broad shoulders. “Could’ve been better.” 

Well, at least Jeff wasn’t denying the obvious—that remained the same. Shit, maybe he and Jeff could look for a shrink together for all the fuckload of good it did to Jack because Kent wasn’t good at emotional stuff, and Jeff looked like he was  _ this  _ close to snapping at any second. This couldn’t be good for him. 

“You?” Jeff unrolled wrapping around his knuckles and began to put on new ones. Shit, how long had he been at it? 

Kent shrugged, “I always come early.”

“Well,” Jeff shrugged, “I need a partner.” He gestured toward the punching bag and then smirked. “I’ll even let you pick the music.” 

“I’ll get you to like female artists one day.” 

“I like Mariah,” Jeff protested.

_ “Everyone  _ likes Mariah.” 

Jeff gave him a long look, “I think only people without taste like Britney,” he enunciated slowly. 

Kent punched him in the shoulder. 

“Hey, man, you know that you don’t always have to talk to your girl in the bathroom.” Jeff dug through his duffle bag, which after rooming together for the past months, Kent knew was full of white shirts and brown slacks. “And pick up your towel! Are you a barbarian?” 

“Should I pick up my socks and shirts too?” Kent asked. He would’ve picked them up himself but he found this way was much more effective. 

“Yes, I’m not your fucking maid.” Jeff huffed, picking up Kent’s clothes off the ground and throwing them into a laundry basket for room service. He proceeded to fluff Kent’s pillows and smooth out his blanket too. 

Kent held back a laugh and ventured, “Talk to my girl?” 

“You do this thing where you talk with the shower on? Or you’ll call when I’m asleep. I can peace out to Scrappy’s room and hang out there while you—” Jeff shuddered and made air quotes, “—talk. Just don’t get jizz all over the floor, alright? Clean up after yourself.” 

Kent thought about his phone’s call log. There were two dozen calls to Zimms in the past month and a half. A few unread texts from Chloé and some read texts from Liv. He lost count of the string of texts he’d sent to the abyss of Jack’s phone. 

“Thanks,” Kent replied dryly. “But you’re hardly one to talk and my sex life is none of your business, either.”

“What do you mean?” Jeff scrunched his nose. 

Kent rolled his eyes and got up from his bed, slipping his feet into his slides. “You’re always texting now and yelling at someone on the phone nowadays. Look,” he spread his hands out defensively, “if you’ve got a girl and she’s mad at you for something, maybe you should stop trying to fuck your way into every city.” 

Jeff snorted, “You sound just like my mom. Where is this coming from anyway?” 

“You started it!” 

“Well, you talking to your girl woke me up—”

“—Sorry—” 

Jeff shrugged. “It’s alright. I just wanted to tell you I know long distance sucks. Broke me and my ex up. It’s alright if you ask me to leave every once in a while. I’m not an asshole—I get it.” 

“Thanks dude.” Kent gave him a thwack onto the shoulder. 

Jeff’s phone rang on the nightstand and he walked over to pick it up. “Speak of the devil,” Jeff grumbled, probably louder than he intended it to. “I gotta take this.” 

* * *

When Jeff returned from talking to whoever on his phone, probably the ex he told Kent about, he looked more upset than Kent had ever seen him. They had a game against the Bruins tomorrow. They couldn’t have an upset Jeff on their hands and this period of brooding had lasted for far too long, in Kent’s opinion. So he brought it up to Scrappy and naturally Matty inserted himself. That meant Fishstick also followed to do damage control for the havoc Matty would, inevitably, wreak. 

“I can’t believe we’re—” 

“Parser.” Scrappy cut in. “This is for his own good.” 

“Do we need to snoop through his stuff though?” 

“I just need to know if he’s been eating chocolate lately. He eats chocolate when he’s depressed.” 

Kent’s head whipped around, “I thought he told me he eats chocolate after sex.” 

“Exactly. Swoops has been indulging in sad sex.” 

Matty’s British voice cut through, “When you mean ‘sad’ sex, do you mean as in unenjoyable and mediocre? Or ‘sad’ sex like depressed ‘I want to bury my feelings’ sex? Because it can mean two things—” 

“It’s the second one,” Scrappy insisted flatly. “He’s been like this for months. This needs to end. We’re staging an intervention.” 

“Are you sure you’re not overreacting? He’s a young, good-looking lad. Let him have his fun! Girls dig his big, broad shoulders. Hell, even  _ I  _ dig it.” Matty protested, taking a big bite of his tuna fish sandwich and spraying crumbs everywhere. 

Fishstick rolled his eyes. “Your repressed bisexuality is honestly the worst kept secret in the entire NHL, besides the fact that Jeff Troy probably has HPV.” 

Matty made kissy-noises, “You’re just mad that you’re in a relationship and Ayesha won’t consent to a threesome with me—” 

“—I don’t want my first threesome to be with you—” 

“—I’m far more handsome and my accent is sexy—” 

“—it’s supposed to be a special occasion—” 

“What the fuck is going on?” Kent’s voice cut in irately. “Can one of you tell me what’s wrong with Jeff? Why are we talking about his sex life? What do M&M wrappers—” he pulled them out of Jeff’s trash can, “—have to do with it?” 

Matty waved his hand around dramatically, “Beats me, dude. Scrappy’s turning into Jeff and going all snoopy soccer mom on us.” 

“Do you remember the last time he was like this? The three of us had to camp out in his house for like two weeks and he didn’t do anything except obsessively clean and clean.” Scrappy snapped, a vein slowly appearing in his neck. “Do you want a repeat of that?” 

“We’re…” Matty licked his lower lip, which had some mayo on it, and then his eyes turned a brighter color. “Oh my god,” he managed to say. “It’s April Showers all over again.” 

“Jesus fuck, it took you that long to understand—” Fishstick pressed his lips together.

Matty shook his head and looked at Scrappy desperately, “No, nuh uh—” he swallowed the last of his sandwich, “Jeff’s a fucking idiot—” 

Fishstick rolled his eyes, “Yeah, we got it. You’re denser than a block of bricks.” He turned to Scrappy. “How are we going to keep Jeff from having a mental breakdown? We need our left-winger!” 

“We need our Mama-Jeff to make us pasta before games!” Matty cried out dramatically, flopping back back onto the mattress. “His cooking was shit when he was all depressed. I refuse to go another month without his special quiches and stews.” Matty added mournfully, “He always makes me beef stew when I’m sick. I can’t go without my special beef stew.” 

Kent lost his patience eventually and grabbed their attention by pounding the desk loudly, which was rather effective because it got all three of them—Fishstick, Matty and Scrappy—to stare at him as if he lost his mind. “What’s wrong with Jeff?” 

Fishstick and Scrappy glanced at each other helplessly, looking like they wanted to tell him but wouldn’t due to their mutual respect for Jeff’s privacy. 

“Can’t tell you. It’s private.” Scrappy finally let out regretfully. 

“Really? Scrappy?” Kent said incredulously, “You won’t tell me what’s wrong with _ my  _ roommate and best friend but you’ll go through his trash and try to look through his nightstand—” Matty was currently opening the drawers with his greasy sandwich hands, “Matty! He’s going to freak out if he sees stains. Stop it!” 

From the mattress, Matty stated easily, as if his words were as serious as commenting on the weather. “Jeff went through a pretty nasty breakup with his— ” 

“Matty!” Both Fishstick and Scrappy hissed. 

“What?” Matty held his hands up defensively and lifted his chin. “Parser was going to find out eventually! He lives with the guy—” 

“But if Jeff wanted him to know, he would have told Parser—” Scrappy said shrilly. 

“—we only found out because we walked in on him asking her not to leave him,” Matty retaliated, pushing his chest out. “It’s not like he wanted  _ us  _ to know.” Then Matty returned to addressing Kent, as if nothing had happened, “He was with her for a long time.” 

“Was it serious…?” Kent asked slowly and received a contemptuous glare from Scrappy. “Hey! They were really young, alright?” 

Matty supplied bitingly. “Well ... considering that he thought she was the love of his life, asked her and he’s been fucking his feelings away ever since. I’d say they were pretty serious.”

“Holy shit.” 

Scrappy slapped his own forehead, “Matty, you’re not supposed to tell him that! Ever heard of privacy.” 

“Ever heard of just staging an intervention without the need to snoop?” Matty raised his eyebrows and gave a slight close-lipped smile when Scrappy accepted it reluctantly. 

Kent could hardly believe that Jeff had been with a girl who wasn’t a hookup, let alone been engaged and in love. It was  _ Jeff _ they were talking about. Jeff couldn’t stand it when people didn’t use coasters and once nearly kicked a girl out of his apartment for putting her dirty socks on the bed. How had he ever put up with any woman well enough to have wanted to spend the rest of his life with her?

The door knob began to jangle open and they all scrambled. Matty shoved Jeff’s laptop under the pillow and hastily wiped the crumbs off the duvet. 

“Okay, okay, I got it— ” Jeff said into the phone impatiently as he swung the door open. When he spotted all four of them in the room, Matty and Fishstick snuggled together closely on the bed and Scrappy on the floor by Kent’s feet, he slowly bade goodbye. “Mom? I gotta go. There’s something I need to handle.” He put his phone away. “What the fuck do you all want?” 

“How could you?” Matty stalked up to Jeff and poked him several times in the chest. “How could you keep this from me?” 

Fishstick’s eyes flickered between Matty and Jeff nervously, “Matts…” 

“No! I won’t be silenced!” Matty cried out dramatically and then pointed his finger at Kent,  _ “He  _ told me something—something most grievous. Most outrageous. How could you do this Jefferson Troy? Why would you keep this from me? We’re friends—” Matty threw his arms around Jeff’s shoulders and cried, his voice slightly muffled from the way his face was shoved into Jeff’s neck. 

“Don’t listen to him. He’s crazy—” Kent waved his arms frantically.

Matty pulled away from Jeff and sniffled, “You’ve betrayed me.” 

“Err—” Jeff held Matty’s hands and looked at Scrappy helplessly, mouthing, ‘what the fuck?’ 

“He’s been like this all day.” Scrappy offered. “He found out about you and Parser.” He shrugged nonchalantly. 

“I did!” Matty hollered. “How could you cook for him,  _ everyday? _ You never did that for me! I was yours first!” Matty groaned and then stumbled away from Jeff, nearly tripping over the shoes by the door as he clutched his chest. “You were my rookie once, you know. How ungrateful—you have bitten the hand that fed you. ‘How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!’” 

“What are you talking about?” Jeff frowned. 

Matty straightened up immediately and wiped his nose. “Shakespeare. What are  _ you  _ talking about?” 

“Okaayyyy,” Fishstick got in between Matty and Jeff, grabbing Matty by the waist and then slowly hauling him towards the door. “He’s been in a mood all day. Low blood sugar. He misses your pasta—” 

“Maybe the smartass,” Jeff tapped his feet and mimed making stirfry, “Should learn how to cook himself.” 

Scrappy made excuses about needing to shower and then left soon after, leaving only Kent and Jeff. 

“I’m beat. Night, Parser,” Jeff mumbled before face planting into the duvet. He kicked his shoes off. 

“Uhh…” Kent said, “You’re gonna sleep in your jeans?” 

Jeff nodded, “Yep.” 

“At least take your belt off.” 

“You’d like wouldn’t you?” Jeff snarked but the sound of metal indicated he was taking his belt off and stripping down to his boxers. 

“We’re gonna do good, Swoops.” Kent went to turn off the light after getting ready for bed. 

“Hmm.” Jeff yawned, “Of course, gotta kick ass for them to see.”

Kent frowned into the darkness, staring at the popcorn ceiling. “Swoops?” 

Jeff only huffed in reply. “Lemme sleep.”

“Why don’t you have a girlfriend? You’re always hooking up,” Kent cleared his throat, knowing how intrusive it sounded. “You seem like the type of guy girls would want to actually date…” he finished awkwardly. 

“I did.”

“When?” 

“A while ago.” 

Kent laughed, “Yikes.” 

“Go to sleep, Kent,” Jeff said sharply and there was something in his voice that wasn’t there before. 

Kent wasn’t sure what it was and he tried not to overthink it because it was late—and they had to kick the Bruins’ ass tomorrow—so he just rolled over onto his side. He reached the phase where he wondered if everyone hated him and he decided that was a good time to go to bed.

* * *

Kent lazily skated around the rink, not pushing too hard and making sure not to show off because the latter was the surest way to get Keenan riding his ass. He just let the music and the sound of the crowd pump him up for the game. It was still relatively early into the season, nothing too serious, but he couldn’t help but feel some nerves course through his body as he saw Jeff lace up his skates. 

Scrappy and Jeff had been speaking earlier in low tones, too low for Kent to pick up, but it seemed the course of the conversation hadn’t been good as Jeff left in a huff—dark storms clouding his face. 

It wasn’t that he was worried about losing—okay, he was always worried about losing because he wanted to win. They’d lost three games before but they were still doing well in terms of points in the league. The sports channels and analysts even considered them a serious contender for conference finals. That was something to celebrate and he counted on his team to be able to carry them there. They could do it. 

So,  _ no, _ the nerves weren’t because of Jeff and how distracted he looked. Kent was nervous because this was the first time that he’d ever seen Jeff genuinely upset on the ice since they’d started playing on the same line. Jeff even looked upset during team breakfast when they served Vietnamese coffee. Jeff  _ loved  _ Vietnamese coffee—he guzzled that shit like it was water. 

“Hey, Cap,” Kent skated over to Wolfie to mutter something quietly enough that the others couldn’t hear. “Swoops looks like he’s kinda out of it.”

“Yeah?” Wolfie looked over at where Jeff wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that his head wasn’t in the game. In fact, Jeff was staring forlornly at one of the boxes on the visitors’ side. Was someone supposed to meet him? Wolfie’s face crumpled into a look of understanding and he patted Kent solidly on the back. “I got it, kid. Don’t worry.” 

Kent tried to hide his disapproval of how Wolfie was treating him. He was Jeff’s roommate and rookie for fucks’ sake. Why did everyone think they should hide this stuff from him? 

“Is he going to be alright? He’s still going to play right—he’s been on top of his game lately,” Kent began worriedly. 

“Look, Parser,” Wolfie interrupted. “I got this. Swoops’ll get his shit together.” 

Swoops  _ did  _ have his shit together throughout the game. Whatever he was angry at, it didn’t interfere with his ability to pass and connect with the others. In fact, Kent saw a sort of frantic desperation never before seen in Jeff—normally he was able to stay cool under the pressure—and while it was unusual, it was welcome in these conditions. They still lost to the Bruins by one point in overtime, though, after three periods of being tied 1-1. 

On their way to the lockers, Jeff got so pissed he broke his hockey stick against the wall and then picked up the pieces only to snap them in half again, splinters flying. 

“That was rough.” Kent said awkwardly but he wasn’t sure if there was an adequate word for what exactly that game was. It felt so much more personal for Jeff. Was it because his family—hypocritical mother, overprotective father, racist grandparents and all—were watching in the stands? He sat down on the bench next to Jeff and put his hand on his shoulders. It was Jeff so Kent was unused to doing all the comforting but he wanted to be there for his friend. Repaying the favor and all that.

The rest of the team had filed out of the locker room. Coach Keenan was so personally offended by their loss that he hadn’t even joined them in the locker rooms. He knew Scrappy and probably Matty and Fishstick were probably hanging back to make sure Jeff was alright though. 

It wasn’t like any of them were rookies (Kent not included) and they hadn’t been in a while and they could have left Jeff on his own to grieve and brood, but Jeff would have done the same in their position. Kent was honestly just glad that Jeff seemed to enjoy providing emotional support and even liked having him. 

Most of the team were still a little wary of Kent, like they weren’t quite sure how to approach him, but Jeff had never been that way and just patted Kent on the back before games and encouraged him, and to go out there and have fun, because if it wasn’t fun, then what was the point? They have the best job in the world. 

He told himself, too. He had to make sure he didn’t forget. Even after the bad games, like today, he needed to do his best and remember to enjoy it, even if the media and coach was all over them tanking at the last minute. It was okay. It was still relatively early in the season. It was only their fourth loss out of fourteen games. They would be okay. There was always a way back. There was a way to bring Jeff back. This wasn’t Jack. This wasn’t. 

“Jeff?” 

“What?” 

“Are you gonna be okay?” Kent asked. “You’ve been … I don’t know.”

Jeff blinked at Kent, who was standing next to him, and stared up. He looked so sad. It wasn’t like Jeff to be so transparent. Usually, it was the other way around. The thing is, to Jeff, everyone else was easy to read and he could feel people from a mile away. Kent knew that was just how Jeff rolled. Mood in the locker room? Jeff could have sniffed it out and had something to say. Kent on the verge of a minor mental breakdown? Jeff would’ve slapped him on the back and started humming Britney. 

So when Jeff hadn’t done any of that—none of the encouraging and reassuring promises to make Matty soup and none of the teasing of Kent’s sweat-slicked hair—it was a red flag, a major one. 

“I…” Jeff sucked in a deep breath. “I gotta go and see my folks. I have stuff to take care of.” He got up and steeled his face, a grim countenance of determination and anger. “I’ll see you later, Parser. Go have fun with Scrappy.” 

* * *

Kent’s evening didn’t quite go as planned. He went out drinking with Alexei and Scrappy.

In the end, though, maybe he should have seen it coming—that Jeff would be majorly upset about something and not tell him. Was there something fundamentally wrong with Kent that forced his closest friends to bottle their problems up? That kept them from confiding in Kent? Maybe Kent shouldn’t have barged in on Jeff’s problems so much. He should have just kept his nose out of Jeff’s business, not asked Scrappy for help, not asked about Jeff’s family and love life. 

He slipped into the booth he shared with Alexei and grunted when Alexei’s knee collided with his. 

The idea of Jeff not drinking with them, though, made the booth feel very empty even though there were about five of them smushed into it, and that smidgen of hope that Kent might have a best friend again … Well, it was beginning to fade. Kent looked at his cup of beer and frowned. The thing was, he was beginning to think maybe he didn’t need to play hockey with Zimms. He had Jeff. They had their own kind of hockey magic.

But Jeff hadn’t been there today. Kent took a deep breath and then downed his beer. 

“Kenny?” Alexei asked once Matty, Scrappy and Fishstick left to go God knows where. 

Kent grunted.

“Kenny,” Alexei gave him a soft poke on the thigh. “Kenny. Hey.”

“What?” 

“You worry. You argue with Swoops?” Alexei had a deep wrinkle between his eyes. 

“What?” 

“Jeff? He tell you he be okay?” Alexei asked again. Kent hadn’t given much detail on what transpired in the locker room, but Alexei was astute. “Because you stay after, right? You secretive, but … I mean—” 

“No,” Kent shook his head. “I just—” he sighed and waved the waitress over, needing more beer. “I worry about him. He was really upset after the game ended. This is his hometown, you know? After the game ended, he wouldn’t really talk to me and he left to go get dinner with his parents—”

“Then why worry?” Alexei looked confused. “He have family.” 

“He doesn’t like them much.” 

“Not everyone like family much. But they love them. I not like Sasha and Alina sometimes but they know how make me smile.” Alexei said simply, taking a long sip of his beer and scrunching his nose. “This beer bad.” He pretended to gag but proceeded to drink it again. “They take care of Swoops.” 

“Why are you so confident?”

“Because some problems, only family can help. Not your job to solve all Swoops problem.” Alexei gave him a knowing look and quirked his eyebrow. 

“But I’m his friend—”

“I your friend but I not solve all your problem. Same with me. I not tell you everything. Somethings I tell Dima instead. But we still care, no?” 

“How are you so good at this four beers in?” Kent asked, looking at their empty cups. 

“Am Russian. We like coconut.” 

“Coconut…”

“Hard on outside, soft on inside,” Alexei proved his point by pulling Kent into a fullbody hug. “Soft, yes?” 

“Fuck, okay,” Kent laughed, trying to detangle himself from Alexei and began to thrash, “Let me go. You’re bruising my ribs.”

Alexei responded by squeezing Kent even tighter. 

“Fuck off with your big ass arms, ya lug.” 

“Sorry,” Alexei beamed before asking. “You need me do anything?” 

“Yeah,” Kent groaned, “let go of me.”

“No.”

“Russians are weird,” Kent sighed.

“That’s all?”

“Alexei, promise you won’t leave.”

“How we go from hug to me not leaving?” Alexei let go of him quickly and scanned his face. “You hit head?” 

“No… you’re my guy. You and Jeff. I …” Kent blushed and fidgeted. 

“Ahh, I tell you not leave last time. I never leave.” Alexei repeated, slightly exasperated. 

“Promise, dude?” 

“I promise. No pinkes. You have small hands. We hug instead.” And Alexei squeezed him again. 

“I think you’ve had too much to drink,” Kent laughed. Alexei always got too touchy and too affectionate whenever he was a little tipsy. He wasn’t sure if any of the team had ever seen Alexei full out drunk, but Kent wasn’t looking forward to the day when that would happen. 

“We go back drink now?” Alexei asked, waving the waitress over so she would bring them another round of beers. 

“I …” Kent couldn’t unload all his crap on Alexei, not now, in the middle of the bar, when the team was around them and they had another game tomorrow in New York. Ideally, they should have been on their way back to the hotel. He was having one hell of a season, so far, and he would prefer to keep his points up. It was one of the only things keeping him afloat these days, amidst all the charity work, drug tests and interviews.

Alexei let out a soft breath, “Tell me.”

“I felt like a real moron today,” Kent confessed. 

“You always moron.”

“No, this was … really stupid. Like, horrible. I knew there was something up but I just let it slide and I didn’t say anything. It’s too late for me to fix it now.” 

“Can’t fix for you, Kenny.” Alexei reminded. 

“I’m not asking you to,” Kent replied. “I just …” He knew it wasn’t exactly his problem, that Jeff had more than enough people to help him through this, that this was something entirely outside of hockey and the team, but he couldn’t let go of the nagging feeling that this was his responsibility. That Jeff was his roommate, his friend. His problem to fix. “I feel responsible for him, accountable for him. Like I live with the man. Shouldn’t I have known? Do you think I should have known? That I should have pushed harder?” 

“No, sometimes people need private. Not tell others,” Alexei looked at him, slow and steady, “And sometime need space to figure problem. To be ready to tell others.” 

Kent sighed. “Are you referring to the Halloween party?” 

It had taken Alexei two weeks to finally be ready to forgive Kent, much longer than Kent had truly anticipated.

“I tell you I worry team not need me,” Alexei had crossed his arms over his chest, barging into Kent’s living room as he ate Chinese food and watched  _ The Simpsons. _ “Then you insult me and tell me I not important. Hurt very much. I tell you insecurity. You throw back at me. But forgive you now.” Kent had stared at him wide-eyed and cross-legged on the couch, Chinese food halfway to his mouth. “You not have anything to say?” 

Kent had pushed his eggrolls forward, because he knew they were Alexei’s favorite, and said thickly, “You can have them and my fortune cookies too.” 

“Yes,” Alexei nodded, eyes softening, “Like that. Give time. You not responsible for all Jeff. Jeff also grown man. Big man too.”

“It’s not that…” Kent slammed his head on the table, groaning loudly in frustration and drawing the attention of some of the other teammates. 

Alexei waved off their concerned looks, “Drink too much. Head hurt. Stupid rookie not hold liquor.” 

“Fuck you,” Kent wheezed. 

“Tempting, but you need tell me problem first.” 

“I just want him to know that even if he won’t tell me his problems, and that’s fine, he’s totally entitled to his privacy—” even if it annoyed Kent a little but he was hardly one to talk because his skeletons in the closet were  _ serious,  _ “—but I just want to be there for him. I want him to know that no matter what, I’ll help him and support him. Cause …” Kent licked his lips, “Cause… he’s done the same for me, you know? He’s one of my closest friends. I wouldn’t have been able to survive this year without him—without him doing all that he does to take the attention off of me. Without him teaching me how to do my laundry and how to cook and how to sign up for car insurance.”

Alexei stared at Kent’s face. Maybe it was disastrous for Kent to admit all of this, because he wasn’t sure how Alexei would interpret it—either as a sign of friendship or as a sign that the rumors between him and Zimms were true. “You tell him that?” 

“Eh?” 

“You tell him that?” 

“ … No?”

“When he come back, you tell him that. Things happen for reason but you appreciate him as friend. Will make him feel better.” 

“Oh,” Kent said softly, feeling slightly thickheaded. 

Alexei put his hand over Kent’s and said softly, “I feel same, Kenny. That’s why I not go anywhere. Stay here long as let me. You do same, I know. You good heart.”

Kent was quiet for a moment, then he asked, “What did I do to deserve you? You’re the best.” 

“Haha,” Alexei laughed brightly. “Not about deserve. About believe and I believe you very good friend, Kent Parson.” 

* * *

It was way past curfew when Jeff got back to the team hotel, but he told Kent he had special permission to stay out late. He wanted to visit his family, he said, and Coaches Martinez and O’Malley knew Jeff grew up in the area. Both of them said it didn’t matter so long as Jeff showed up bright and early for team breakfast, ready to kick ass again. 

“I…” Kent took a deep breath when he heard the door slam shut. He got up from his bed and looked at Jeff firmly in the eye. The man did not look good. His eyes were bright and his mouth was sloped down, “Okay, I have something to say—” 

“Not now, Kent—” Jeff said lowly, pushing past him. 

Kent grabbed Jeff by the forearm, “—look, I know you’re hurting and I—” 

“I said fuck off, okay!” 

“I will after you listen!” 

“I don’t wanna fucking hear it,” Jeff snapped. 

“What? You’re gonna ignore me? We play on the same line,” Kent sneered. “I know you’ve got some issues that you’ve got to deal with—” 

Jeff moved back defensively, “Was this about the game today? It was one bad game. We’ve been winning before.” He pointed at Kent, “Don’t you fucking blame me for us losing—” 

“I don’t blame you for anything!” Kent exclaimed, suddenly taken aback by the accusations and the dark gleam in Jeff’s eyes. 

“Fine. Then, we have nothing to talk about.” 

Sure, he could do that but it wasn’t easy for Kent. He was constantly  _ not  _ talking about everything, about how helpless he felt, how much pressure was riding on his shoulders, on his feelings towards Zimms, on his constant terrors. While those topics were never broached, he knew he could approach Jeff about them and that the only reason he hadn’t confided in Jeff about them was his own doing, not Jeff’s unwillingness to listen or understand. It was easy to be comfortable around Jeff, to not worry about putting on a facade all day and night. On days where all he felt like he did was fail and fail and fail, Jeff knew what to do. 

Why wouldn’t Jeff let Kent do the same? 

Honestly, Jeff was a much better friend than Kent could ever be. Kent constantly lied to everyone, ditched Jeff at the last minute when he suddenly felt like he was seeing images of Zimms and needed to blast Britney and cry instead, and snapped at people whenever he was having a bad day, but Jeff was always there and Kent didn’t deserve him and that made him even more determined to make sure Jeff was alright.

“Jeff,” Kent tried to coax. He let go of Jeff and looked at him with concern. “Why don’t you sit down? You don’t look too good. I’ll get you a glass of water.”

Kent grabbed a bottle of water from the hotel fridge and watched as Jeff gently shrugged off his jacket and pulled off his shoes. When Jeff was situated on his bed, Kent sat next to him and began again, “Hey, look, I know you feel like shit but I want to let you know you’re an amazing player—” 

“Not right now.” 

“—and it sucks to lose in front of your family and stuff—” Jeff glared at Kent seethingly. “But I just wanna let you know, whatever that happened, I’m still here for you—” Kent nudged Jeff gently, “‘cause you’re my friend.” Kent swallowed thickly, “Jack—Jack used to be my person and he’s not right now so…” he shrugged, trying to look nonchalant and not like he was going to cry from opening up about Jack for the first time in for-fucking-ever, “It’s you and I don’t think—I know that’s not really gonna change anytime soon. You don’t have to tell me jack shit, but you need to know I’m here for you. Whether or not you want me to be.” 

Jeff slowly breathed in through his nose and let it back out through his mouth. He swallowed a good mouthful of water, looking like he was in between raging and crying. Kent felt very overwhelmed by the sudden display of emotion from his friend. 

“Hey,” Kent scooted over, “It’s okay.” 

He wrapped an arm around Jeff and, what the hell, maybe Jeff was going to cry after all. “Shit, Jeff, come on, don’t—” 

“I’m sorry,” Jeff choked out, not exactly bawling but close enough to it. 

“No, hey, that’s not what I meant. It’s okay. I just don’t want you to feel like … like you gotta keep all this shit to yourself ‘cause I know a lot of us confide in you. You can be sad too,” Kent soothed, feeling incredibly underprepared at the sudden onslaught of rage and regret radiating off Jeff. He was not the right person to deal with this, but he was trying his best. He tried to repeat the words his mother would have said to him.

Jeff buried his face into Kent’s shoulder and asked, “You ever been in love before?” 

Had he ever been in love before? That was a loaded question. 

Because that implied he didn’t love Jack now, even though they weren’t together anymore, even though they weren’t clearly in each other's lives. Being in love was the easy part. It was getting over it, after your time passed, that was hard. With Kent and Jack, their purposes and passions had driven them apart—to opposite directions—until one of them tried to end themselves. But he still loved Jack, even if the relationship made him feel like he was a shadow of himself at times, or worse, a sort of annex of Jack, or a fading echo that couldn’t be heard as Jack swallowed more and more pills. 

“Yeah,” Kent chewed on his bottom lip. 

“Enough to…” Jeff pulled away and wiped his eyes, snot running down his nose. “Enough to wanna marry them?” 

“I—” Kent thought about the trajectory of his life and how Jack was an innate puzzle in it. When he imagined his future, Jack always featured in the daydreams—sometimes he would be Kent’s lover, sometimes he would be Kent’s teammate, sometimes he would just be Kent’s, but he didn’t exclusively appear as Kent’s future husband. Those daydreams were rare. 

“I’m sorry,” Jeff mumbled. 

“Come on…” Kent scooted back and pulled Jeff with him, one arm still wrapped around Jeff which was a struggle because the other man had six inches and forty pounds on him. “I always got embarrassed when I cried about stuff, so my Grandpa told me to only do it around people I trusted. I dunno. It’s just me. I’m not gonna make fun of you.” 

Jeff only managed a pathetic sniffle in reply. 

“It’s all good,” Kent shrugged. “Hey, do you want me to get Brightroar? You can snuggle him.”

“Shut up,” Jeff chuckled. Once, Kent had come back to see Jeff napping on the couch, with Brightroar in his arms, from where Kent left him from the night before. It was priceless chirping material. 

“What happened?” Kent inquired tentatively, aware of how sensitive Jeff was at the time. 

“I was …” Jeff’s voice broke, “I was engaged to a girl—Valeria Cruz—” his face grew stoney, “We were high school sweethearts, you know? I had been with her for about five years and I thought she was the one …” he shrugged pitifully. 

“I thought you said you had a girlfriend last year?”

“Yeah,” Jeff trembled. “Then she became my fiance for about four months.” 

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Jeff chewed on his bottom lip, “Anyway, I thought I was gonna marry that girl. We’d been together for six years.  _ Six  _ years. That was a third of my life at that point. But long distance wasn’t cutting it for her,” Jeff’s face contorted into an indescribable expression, “We’d also gone to separate colleges and she told me she felt like she wasn’t ready to be a relationship—let alone be in a marriage where I was constantly traveling. I guess we were at different places in life. I had a job and she was still in school. Broke it off when I came to visit her for her birthday after season ended. It was her spring break.” 

“I’m sorry,” Kent held onto Jeff tightly, not exactly surprised Jeff had his life figured out so soon. Jeff didn’t exactly act like he was in his early twenties—like he barely turned old enough to drink legally—because he was an old soul. 

Jeff muttered, “I really thought—you know when I was with this girl, Val, I thought I had found the love of my life. I was done. No need for hookups. No shitty first dates.” He snorted, “I was gonna spend the rest of my life with her but my mom told me she wasn’t ready—that Val wasn’t ready. I didn’t listen and my mom turned out to be right, and I just—” he inhaled deeply again and exhaled even louder, “When Val broke it off, I didn’t give her time to give me the ring back and then she left to do shit in Africa for college so I couldn’t visit to get it back. I just met up with her and she handed it back to me,” Jeff pulled a ring box out of his back pocket. 

“Is that why you’ve been out of it?” 

“Yeah. Sorry.” 

“Don’t be sorry.” 

“You know it was so bad when I saw Val that my mom didn’t have anything negative to say? She didn’t even cuss out Val. She’s  _ always  _ hated Val.” Jeff muttered darkly, “The old harpie didn’t have anything remotely blasphemous or cruel to say when I needed it the most. Useless old bitch. She just asked me if I wanted ice cream and then she dropped me off here—like I was a little kid who needed to be handled gently.” Jeff rolled his eyes, “When has that woman ever treated me like I was delicate! She’s so fucking mean—she makes Gordon Ramsey look like a saint. I’m not fucking glass, dammit! My mom can’t get anything right. No wonder she married a psych professor. Can’t read moods for shit.” 

“She was just worried about you.” 

Jeff yawned, “I know. I wish she would’ve yelled at Val though or at least thrown something at her. Because I’m a gentleman and I definitely can’t do that.” 

Jeff’s chin was on top of Kent’s head and even when he finally managed to stop crying, he didn’t move it away. 

“Kent,” Jeff whispered. 

Kent looked up, “Yeah?”

“I really loved that girl. I really,  _ really  _ loved her.” 

“I know.” 

“I met with Val, by myself, and she yelled at me for not loving her. Because she knows about the girls I’ve slept with,” Jeff twisted his lips, “She asked if she meant anything to me. Does she think that if she didn’t, that I wouldn’t be sleeping my feelings away?  _ She  _ left  _ me.  _ She doesn’t get to judge me.” 

“No, she doesn’t,” Kent agreed. 

“I need to stop all the fucking,” Jeff whispered, sounding like he wasn’t exactly talking to Kent in particular. “It’s not really helping. Just makes me feel a little sad.”

Kent wasn’t sure what to say so he patted Jeff’s back. 

Jeff cleared his throat and asked hoarsely, “Kent?” 

“Yeah?”

“Don’t ever fucking tell anyone I said this.”

“I won’t. I never would, you know that.”

“I sound like a girl,” Jeff groaned, thumping his head against Kent’s shoulder one more time. “We’ve been watching too much  _ Gilmore Girls.”  _

“Girls know how to handle breakups. They cry and then they’re over it.” Yes, Kent knew that because everytime Liv had her heart broken, her gaggle of girlfriends would come over and eat their feelings away with her. They would cry and sob for a few days and then be over it. Girls knew how to handle breakups. “But, Jeff?” Jeff was quiet for a moment, his breathing level. “I’ll help you through it, however I can. The others too—” 

“Others?” 

“Scrappy, Matty and Fishstick. Matty told me,” Kent informed. “You’re not alone in all of this. It’s not fair for you to expect like you should have to carry all of this yourself. I don’t know … I just want you to be okay.” 

“Touche, dude. Touche.” Jeff laughed again, a choked up sound from all the snot and tears. “You’re a good friend, Parser.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In no way am I "slut shaming" or criticizing anyone who engages in one night stands. That's not what I'm here for. But I want to acknowledge that Kent has a warped view of sex. He's grown up in a household that promoted abstinence and, as a result, developed the subconscious notion that people who have had many sexual partners are inherently "whores" and of lesser moral status. It's something he's definitely going to work on throughout this series. However, that in no way means I promote the behavior that Jeff is engaging in. It is not healthy to indulge in hedonism to avoid personal suffering. Sex is sex. It is not entirely empowering all the time, and it is not entirely degrading all the time. But sex should not be used as a means to cope with deep seated grief and pain.
> 
> And with that concludes my updates for a while. I won't be updating on a biweekly/weekly basis for the next two months or so, but this story will not be abandoned!


	6. blessings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected guest arrives and shakes up Kent's world for a few days.

**November 2009**

They went on the road again soon after and were on a streak so far. Two overtime wins and one shutout courtesy of Matty fucking Heikkinen. All against the Aeros, the Jets and the Oilers. 

Their next three home games were complete and total disasters. 

Kent was scoring points, because he always scored points, but Fishstick was out for his wrist and Scrappy had sprained an ankle which meant their D-line could have just not existed for all the good it was doing them. Matty was working his ass off in the goal like the champ he was, but there was just so much that he could survive in the crease before he either fell or completely fucking lost it, and he was slowly approaching both. 

During their last game, Coach Keenan was so over them losing that he decided not to do jack shit and actually sat down— that arrogant fucker. Martinez and O’Malley had to step up and tell them what plays to use. 

The Aces already lost against the Preds and the Avs, and this fucking game was just the final nail in the coffin. 

“What the fuck was that?” Kent snarled in the locker room after the second period. They were down five against the Stars and it was fucking embarrassing. “Look, if you want to fucking stand around and fondle your balls, then do that, but get the hell off the ice. If you want to play, fucking _mean_ it.”

They were all pissed off so he expected someone to take a swing at him, but it’s not like Kent was telling anything but the truth. It was a hard fucking pill to swallow. 

They managed to get their shit together enough to tie the result by the end of the third and then they went into overtime just to lose within five minutes. Kent was so fucking livid he broke his stick against the wall on the way to the locker room. 

He stayed in the shower for so long his fingers started to prune, but he was so fucking done with everything that he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t lose it the minute he looked at his teammates back in the locker room. 

As he was toweling himself off, he felt a tap on his shoulder. 

“Someone out there is asking for you. She’s been waiting.” The words fell from Scrappy’s mouth like a torrent—rushed and messy, with each one spilling into the next. 

Kent blinked at him, frowning deeply. He growled with great restraint, “I don’t care.” 

“It’s your friend,” Scrappy’s face looked extremely somber. “She came to visit you.”

Normally, the sad expression on Scrappy’s face would have been enough to get Kent’s attention but right now he was too angry to care much. They had fought so hard and lost—three games in a row. 

Kent scowled and dropped back onto the bench, pulling on his shirt. “Oh—seriously? Is it some journalist posing as my friend? Tell them their stunt won’t fucking work.” 

Scrappy’s lips pursed. He looked as if he was resisting the urge to drag Kent by the ear and slam him into the lockers. “Look, she said she knew you. She flew from New York—” 

“That’s fucking impossible,” Kent cut in, eyes blazing. The only people he knew from New York were too busy right now to fly over and watch his games. Liv didn’t get off for Thanksgiving break until Saturday and right now was Wednesday. “It’s already bad enough that we fucking lost and now you’re going to be stupid enough to believe a stupid journalist? My sister’s in school right now and my family works. No one from New York is coming to see me.”

Kent had put together by now that Scrappy could be kind of gullible, but he never had imagined that it was _this_ serious. He had never been given reason to believe the man was truly stupid—just a little clumsy and prone to getting himself into tight situations. He had thought the root of Scrappy’s chirpable lack of life skills was a result of being coddled by two ever-loving mothers. He had never thought Scrappy would be so clueless that he would actually fall for a stupid trick like this. 

A twisted grimace fixed on Scrappy’s face. 

“You listen to me very carefully, Parser,” Scrappy said seriously and his voice dropped to a shadow of a whisper. He leaned toward Kent, threateningly, and his dark eyes burned into his. “I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing. We all just fucking lost—” 

“You didn’t _play—”_

“—Well, I just had to watch my own damn team fall apart two games after I sprain my ankle!” Scrappy snapped. “It’s fucking pathetic, is what it is! I’m not supposed to be your goddamn baby sitter and I don’t know what the fuck’s up your ass, but there’s some French girl out there for you. She said she caught a last minute flight to see you—”

“What?” Kent said and his anger flickered away into something softer. “What do you mean? What’s her name?”

“She won’t tell me her name because she wanted to be discreet.” 

“That doesn’t sound like my sister.” 

“Dude, I don’t think she’s your sister. Looks nothing like you—” 

Kent scrunched his face, “I don’t know any fucking French girls.” 

“I’m beginning to think you’re stupid, Parser.” Scrappy sighed. “Unless your sister’s some Asian chick in sweats—”

“What’s her name?” 

Scrappy looked like he was beginning to get frustrated,“She wouldn’t tell me her name because she didn't trust me not to blab my mouth—” Scrappy faltered, “—something about the paps. Now just fucking get out there before I punch you in the face for being retarded.” 

Kent stared at Scrappy for one long, unnerving moment. “She,” he began very slowly, because he was only just now beginning to piece everything together, “is scared of the press?”

Scrappy’s forehead creased. “What? Whatever man, just pull your shit together and go say ‘hi’ to your girl—” 

“Fuck,” Kent yelped, and he bolted up from his seat on the bench. “Shit—I’ve got to go—Chloé—” 

Kent didn’t wait for Scrappy’s response and left the locker room immediately. Outside was Jack’s little sister—Chloé Zimmermann—who was talking on her cellphone. She was leaning against the wall and had on oversized sunglasses. Only _she_ would think it was okay to wear thin pajama bottoms, a crop top and flip flops to a cold hockey arena. 

“No, I’m not coming back to Montréal,” Chloé said as Kent was already halfway down the hall to greet her. “Finals season is coming up, I need time to work on my EP, and we don’t even celebrate American Thanksgiving,” a pause. “Yes, Maman—” she faltered for a moment, “I’m not so sure—” she sighed, “It’s too late to book a ticket anyway—” 

Her eyes flickered over to Kent’s and, unwittingly, the corners of her mouth quirked up into a fierce grin, “—I’m sure. I’m staying in New York for break. I know—if I change my mind—” she sighed and ran her hands through her long hair, hurriedly saying, “I love you too. Bye.” 

She ended the call and then immediately shifted from irritated to obnoxiously giddy. “Kenny!” She ran over to hug him, accidentally stepping on his toe in the process. 

He let out an audible grunt at the sudden weight, supporting Chloé by the bottom of her thighs when she wrapped her legs around his waist. 

“I’ve missed you, _mon cheri,_ ” she mumbled into his neck and then proceeded to press a wet smack onto his cheek. He grimaced when she pulled away and he felt residue from her lip gloss. Already, he could imagine the tabloid headlines if they caught wind of the both of them in this compromising position. 

Kent muttered through a mouthful of her hair, “Yeah, me too. Can I put you down now? You’ve gotten fat.” 

She climbed off of him and he was able to drink in the sight of her familiar face—all of her features were still round and plump, like the events of the past few months hadn’t taken the soft edge out of her. It was an enviable trait, Chloé’s ability to find happiness in any given situation. 

“I come here all the way to see you and you not only lose, but you do so in spectacular fashion. _And_ then on top of that, you insult me,” she huffed with feigned indignation, French accent growing stronger. It was like Jack’s and Kent swallowed a wedge of grief in his throat. 

“Yeah, okay, kiddo,” Kent rolled his eyes. He scanned her form for a moment longer before returning to her face. “Why are you here and dressed—” he indicated toward her disheveled appearance because she wouldn’t be caught dead with a hair out of place, “—like a hobo?” 

“This is Juicy Couture,” she protested, throwing her head. “I’m not dressed like a hobo.” 

“What? What the hell is Juicy Couture—” 

“Nevermind—I forgot your head is only filled with hockey stats,” she rolled her eyes dramatically. 

“Your mind isn’t filled with anything—” 

“I’ll have you know I have wonderful ideas.” 

“Like what?” Kent scoffed. 

“Like we should go clubbing!” She cheered, drawing Kent to a halt. “You just got your ass handed to you and I’m trying to find any excuse not to go back to Montréal. Let’s go clubbing!” 

“... Have you been smoking weed again?” 

“Stop being a douche,” she chided him wryly before grabbing his hands. Her eyes were twinkling merrily. “I’ve always wanted to party in Vegas. Aren’t you supposed to show me the ins and outs of America’s Playground, Sin City?” 

“No. You’re too young and I’m not going to be an accomplice to your Zimmermann family drama. You’re just here to avoid your parents, brat,” he narrowed his eyes accusingly. 

Chloé frowned at him and sniffed dramatically, turning her nose up, “I’m not just here to avoid my parents you know. I also came for you.” 

“On Thanksgiving? Chloé _Zimmermann_ wants to spend your Thanksgiving with me?” He inquired incredulously. “You Zimmermanns been avoiding my calls for months—” 

She flapped her hand at him, impatient at his accusations—demanding woman as she was. “That’s _their_ problem. We’ve—” she gestured between the two of them, “—been texting this entire time. I even sent you a congrats after the draft!” 

“Shouldn’t you be with your family, celebrating Thanksgiving? Your parents would probably appreciate your presence right now.” 

Her face darkened. “It’s far more fun to be here for Thanksgiving than boring old Montreal. There’s nothing for me there.”

“What do you mean?” 

Her shoulders slumped and her voice grew incredibly bitter, “Jackie’s still in rehab so Maman and Papa don’t really have a lot to be thankful for, right now. It seemed better to go visit you.” 

“You are a truckload of problems, Chloé.” Kent sighed—knowing full well she had lied to make sure her parents didn’t stop her from going to Las Vegas instead of Montréal. Chloé might have been shrewd enough to criticize her overbearing parents behind their backs, but she was also impulsive and possessed a keen tendency at not thinking her plans through, clever as they could be. 

“You could really say the same about our family,” she murmured. 

Kent was growing steadily more curious as she spoke. He didn’t know how Jack’s overdose affected the Zimmermann household but their relations sounded anything but harmonious. Before he could ask how Jack was doing, Chloé proclaimed, “I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.” 

“Fine.” Kent agreed, but his tone was a tad waspish. Something he hadn’t missed was how insistent Chloé was—it was a trait she shared with Jack and it wasn’t desirable at all. It was one of their few similarities, it seemed. He flicked her on the forehead. “But you’re paying for the food.” 

Chloé’s face broke out into a large smile and she clapped excitedly, “Are we going to get sushi?”

“Fuck no,” Kent wrinkled his nose in distaste, remembering that one bad sushi experience at the Zimmermanns’ part. He rolled his eyes as Chloé linked arms with him. “I just lost my third home game. I’m not going to get sushi—” 

“Why wouldn’t you?” She asked, amused and pulled out a large tube of lipgloss to reapply to her full lips. “It’s delicious.” 

“It’s disgusting.” 

“A man of excellent taste.” She drawled. 

Idly, he found it was better for Chloé to be living with anyone but her parents, for her own flourishing. Whip smart and witty—he always found it odd how Bob and Alicia clammered and coddled Chloé incessantly whilst they ignored their elder child. Perhaps the Zimmermanns did it to make up for Chloé’s clear status as an outsider to their otherwise WASP looking family. But Chloé more than easily brushed off any criticism and snide remarks with style and vivacity. If anything, the mollycoddling from Bob and Alicia only served to dominate her, even on her best days. Some days he thought Bob and Alicia’s attention would have been better served on their eldest child. 

“Are you still upset about that salmon roll you had a few years ago,” she continued, waspishly. “I have told you that my aunt Rosalie hasn’t ever given anyone food poisoning and your bad experience was a result of you drinking too much champagne. You can’t hold your liquor!”

“I’m an NHL player. Of course, I can hold my liquor, you little airhead.” 

“I should sue you for this slander. I’ll take you to court one day, Kent Parson,” she adjusted her sunglasses, a motion of habit. “That’s right—I won’t stand for you insulting me any longer.” 

“This is only making me want to get sushi less and less.” 

“Why?” She asked pointedly. “Sushi is good. It’s got plenty of variety—you can get a spider roll or sashimi. Honestly, you have the palette of a child—” 

“Sushi isn’t comfort food—” 

“—I refuse to fly all this way for your definition of comfort food—” 

“You’re just being pretentious!” 

“—I paid for this ticket myself, you know—” Her gaze travelled across his body, landing on the two pricks on the inside of his elbow where he got tested for drugs a few days ago. She frowned visibly and he watched her jaw clench and unclench. She was analyzing him vigilantly, and Kent knew there were a million and one thoughts swirling in her head, probably questions about what the fuck he was thinking. 

Quickly Kent blurted out, “It’s a drug test. Standard.” 

“Why are you getting tested for drugs?” She demanded. 

“Because…” he shuffled his feet. 

“Because…?” 

“Because it gives management peace of mind. I’m already on thin ice with them. They could pull off the roster.” 

She squinted at him and threw her hands up incredulously. _“Merde,_ you are stupid—Crisse—you’re one of their best players. Why would they throw you away—” 

“Look,” he cut in, “Everyone already thinks I’m on drugs—” 

Chloe ignored what he had to say in defence and swatted him on the chest. “Mon cheri, you’re amazing. Future Hall of Famer. Don’t put yourself down.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Though if you do want to take care of yourself, get some bruise cream. Tiger Balm is your best bet. My roommate introduced it to me.” 

“Why do I need bruise cream?” He moved her hands away from where she was inspecting his face further, “I can handle a bruise—”

“Your face is your only redeemable feature. You need to protect it.” 

Kent let out a low whistle and smirked, “So you _do_ think I’m hot—”

“I never said that—” 

“—but you can’t deny that I’m attractive—” 

She muttered, pulling her Chanel bag closer, “Also can’t deny that you’re an ass.”

“That’s true,” Kent swung his arm around her shoulders, which was a little awkward because she was the same height as him, and patted her cheek affectionately. “You know you love it.” 

“I _have_ missed you, _mon cheri,”_ she leaned into his shoulder and pressed a swift kiss to his cheek. 

He wanted to ask her about what happened but knew if he did it now that she would only grow upset. Kent also couldn’t tell Chloé what happened earlier in the locker room, either. That wound was for him to lick in the privacy of his own bedroom later tonight, after they partied their asses off, of course. He oughtn’t give into the temptation of being Party Boy Parson. The rumor mill, especially when he associated himself with an up-and-coming model like Chloé worked expediently and nastily. When the paparazzi caught pictures of them together, it would eventually catch up with his parents, her parents, and then Jack. Sooner or later, the whole world would know Chloé Zimmermann went to Las Vegas for him and the tabloids would be gripped by some senseless story that they were engaged in a romantic tryst. 

Kent didn’t want that to happen just yet. So, he ducked his head as they made their way out the back of the arena—luckily he was the last teammate out and so there were no questioning stares to avoid. 

* * *

As someone who had, at times, a real myriad of problems, Kent tried his best to avoid quantifying them. Or qualifying them, truth be told. It was a somewhat unavoidable part of the human experience though, and the litany that ran through his head occasionally snuck up on him at the most inopportune times. 

A tendency to be potty-mouthed. A stubborn commitment to impossible situations that would be admirable if it wasn’t so damn sad. A serious case of emotional constipation that frustrated even the most patient of saints. A weird-ass family life that consisted of grandparents who liked to fuck, parents who refused to get married, and a sister who was valiantly trying to keep them all together. 

Currently, his main problem was a best friend who liked to eat taco truck food on the curbside like a homeless person even though she was probably worth millions. (She’d toured with Alicia Keys, last summer, for fuck’s sake.)

The last one was worth repeating. The combination should have been ludicrous or straight-up impossible given the fact that his life was the way it was, but there it was. He didn’t know which part was more ridiculous. 

Bestfriend. 

Or taco trucks. 

No—it was definitely the second one. Some kind of cruel twist of fate to have the two of them in their natural state. Him panting at the too-hot food and her shoving another taco into her mouth. 

Jeff had introduced him to the joint during Kent’s first weekend in Vegas, expecting him to fall in love with it, and then being surprised to learn that Kent couldn’t handle spicy food. Kent was Cuban, not Mexican, and thus he wasn’t fond of burning off his taste buds by eating peppers whole. Like how Chloé was sipping from the little plastic salsa cup like it was water. 

“I hope you know,” he said out loud, whilst scrunching his nose, as if voicing his complaints will somehow convince her to behave like a normal human being and care about others’ perspectives. It didn’t. She still drank the green chili salsa. “That I am a victim in this.” 

The five-foot-ten, bright-eyed, flip-flop-wearing cause of half of Kent’s problems at the moment grinned like she wasn’t currently busy finding a new way to be a perpetual embarrassment. _Damn,_ he had missed her. 

“Sure,” she said, eating a pickled onion and smacking her lips loudly. Unlike Jack, she always found a way to do what she wanted. 

“I just want you to know,” Kent began again, “That I am going out of my way to make sure you never contact Jeff again.” 

In the car, when Kent vehemently refused to eat sushi—not because he didn’t like it but because he sort of wanted to irritate Chloé into submission (it didn’t work)—she called Jeff up and asked for the best late-night food in Vegas. He needed to know how the two of them were even friends. The notion of his carefully maintained worlds colliding was almost too terrifying to fathom. 

She giggled and winked, “Your compliance is noted and will be rewarded.”

“Are you offering me a blowjob? Aren’t you a little young for that?” 

“Ew,” she scrunched her nose and sipped on her horchata. “Aren’t you a little too gay for that?” 

They looked at each other, for a long moment, and then burst out laughing. 

“That’s why we’re friends, isn’t it? ” He snickered. 

She agreed, throwing the hand with her drink into the air and causing it to splash onto the sideway, “Oops—” she looked at the puddle and winced, “—got a little too excited.”

“You’re a fucking mess.” He looked down at where she grabbed several paper napkins from the plastic to-go back and tried to sop up the mess but only succeeded in creating a bigger problem. The napkins dissolved into balls of soggy cinnamony paper.

“And _this_ is why we’re friends,” she flicked him on the forehead and then ate another taco. “Fis ish gud!” She said loudly through a mouthful of meat and tortilla.

Which, of course, was sort of a problem. To anyone else in the world Kent might have said something like, “Fuck no, I will not be going along with your ridiculous, last-minute plans and housing your now technically homeless ass for the duration of your Thanksigiving Break simply because you’re too fucking impulsive and don’t want to go back to your parents’ home, I will be spending my Thanksgiving listening to Britney and drinking an entire jug of spiced eggnog my roommate slash best friend made. Thank you very much.” 

But Chloé had asked to stay over. Kent had initially been hesitant because he was already involved in a little _too_ much Zimmermann drama. And then she had grinned at him with a grin that enthusiastically bordered on a little unhinged, an expression that always seemed to adorn the faces of people who enjoyed _both_ hiking and couture. 

And if that expression meant Kent was now sitting on the curb side, in the middle of the night, breathing in filthy hot Las Vegas air and watching a drunk man piss in the corner—well. 

Men had done stranger things for their best friends. 

But he wouldn’t ever tell Chloé that because she was unbearably arrogant sometimes. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Kent said quietly. 

She hummed through her mouthful of food and swallowed before she said, “Wanted to be here more than anywhere else.” 

“Even more than Montreal?” 

_“Especially_ more than Montreal,” her eyes flashed a dangerous color and poison seeped into her voice. 

He couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed—had she only thought of him because she was angry with her parents? Was he just the backup because the Zimmermanns were too much to handle? Even if she _had_ been angry, would she still have come to Las Vegas? 

Almost as if she could read his mind, she grabbed his hand and traced along his knuckles, “You’re thinking too hard, dummy. What’s up?” 

He shrugged, “It’s just—you know—a little … abrupt. That’s all.” 

“That’s a big word for someone who barely got their GED,” she pointed out sarcastically. 

“GED stands for good enough degree,” he bumped shoulders playfully. “Not all of us can get into a fancy Ivy League school.” Changing the course of the conversation, he asked, “How’s Liv?” 

But he didn’t miss the way Chloé’s eyes lit up, “Dude—have you ever thought about your soulmate?” 

At the word soulmate, Kent swallowed hard because he had. He thought about his soulmate everyday of his life. Sometimes he woke up with Jack’s name on his lips. Other times he turned to the empty space next to him and expected Jack to be there. Somehow telling Chloé—sweet, precious Chloé—this was too much for him to bear so he settled on a nod. 

“I think Liv’s my soulmate but like not romantic, you know? Platonic life partners.” 

The way she said it was with so much reverence and awe he couldn’t help but throw his head back uproariously and laugh. “You’ve lived together for four months,” he chortled, “How can you already know?” 

“Cause she just gets me. Like how I get you,” Chloé confessed. Her eyes were so wide and genuine that Kent wanted to savor the moment forever. Her affection was given so freely sometimes that it shocked him. It was like when he was in need, when his heart felt too hard to beat, she could make him smile. “When she told me that you were gonna be alone for Thanksgiving, she helped me book my flight.” 

That came as a surprise to him. 

“You weren’t in Montréal before?” 

“Nope. Can’t pay me a billion bucks to go back to that snowy hellhole. It’s too much to handle the family and all their sympathy, ‘Oh, we hope Jack’s doing well.’ ‘Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.’ Like he’s not _dead_.” She poked her taco meat with her finger. “Anyway, I sort of came here as soon as I could—and well..” she held her arms out, gesticulating to the scene around them, “Here I am!” 

“Shut up!” Someone in the background shouted. 

She turned around and poked her tongue out. “It’s Las Vegas baby!” 

At that moment, a car drove by them and they got a big whiff of the filthy exhaust. 

Chloé coughed loudly, waving her hand around her nose, “Whew! It is _filthy_ here!” 

“You get used to it.” 

“It suits you.” She teased. 

“Fuck you.” 

“Maybe if you were into women,” she retorted archly. 

Kent chuckled, “Not even if I was into women.” 

Chloé pouted. “Vegas made you tan. Not a liar.” 

“You _are_ very pretty,” he complimented, feeling the same wave of exasperation when she flipped her hair dramatically and nodded appreciatively. He slung his arm around her shoulder. The breeze ruffled his hair and Chloé punched him in the arm, grinning. 

“This is going to be the best week of your life,” she exclaimed, cheering so loudly the passersby gave them odd looks. 

Zimmermanns. Always so dramatic. 

* * *

The next morning Chloé came to his practice under the guise of a friend visiting for the holidays. He suggested it because they’d snuck back into Jeff’s apartment fairly late at night and needed the day to find a nice gift for the man before they sprung an unexpected guest on him. Jeff hated surprises, especially in the form of people, because they made him feel flustered and out-of-control. That meant Kent and Chloé had to apologize profusely and maybe Kent would get Jeff courtside basketball tickets as a Christmas gift. It wasn’t because Jeff wouldn’t let Chloé stay over if they didn’t but because it would save them the trouble calling an ambulance after Jeff had a fucking stroke.

Jeff _seriously_ hated surprises. 

So that meant she was sitting at their practice, with a few of the other WAGs. At least it made his teammates think he was interested in women, even if they assumed he was some sort of celebrity playboy sleeping with the Zimmermann daughter. 

“Dude,” Thrasher came up to him and asked reverently, his voice hush and low, “How did you get a model to come watch our practice?” 

Kent furrowed his brows, “Chloé’s not a model.” 

“But she’s been in magazines before,” Thrasher corrected and then added, looking over to where Chloé and Isabelle were giggling, “She’s so hot and she’s got a hot friend too.” 

Kent’s eyes followed the direction of Thrasher’s and spotted Izzy in the stand. He groaned and mentally chastised himself for forgetting that he promised to take her out to lunch after morning skate today. Somewhere in the past month, Kent had fallen into the habit of taking Izzy out on lunch dates and calling her Izzy. 

“You can’t relate, can you?” Sully ribbed as he skated up to the both of them. 

Thrasher pouted as the rest of the team chirped him for his lack of dating skills. 

When practice was over, they ran a grueling set but it was expected considering their next game was at home against the Hawks, Kent skated off the ice and began to unlace his skates. 

Izzy’s melodic voice carried to where he sat on the bench. “—I just didn’t expect it to be so weird here? I mean, when I modeled in London, I had my family…”

Chloé made a noise of understanding and clucked her tongue. “I did some modeling in Milan once. It was _not_ for me.” 

“Oh? Why not?” 

“Modeling’s more my mother’s niche.” Chloe waved her hand. “Why did you move from London if all your family’s there?”

Izzy sighed deeply, “More opportunity, I suppose.”

“Opportunities?” 

“Yeah,” Izzy nodded. “I’m going to appear in an ad soon.” 

“Oooh,” he could hear Chloé clapping her hands. “That’s exciting. For which company?” 

“Dior.” 

_That_ had Kent raising his eyebrows.

Chloé laughed, “Oh, that should be fun. I’m sure you’ll do well, darling. It’s a big deal to be in a Dior shoot.”

“You’re just saying that. I’m sure you’ve been in shoots before.” 

“That’s not of my own merit though,” Chloé waved it off. “I only did it because my mother thought it would be fun for us to take photos together. I’m more interested in music.” 

“Have I heard any of your songs before?” 

“I’ve released some singles here and there.”

“Maybe you can send me your music later and I’ll check it out.”

“You’re staying in Vegas, right?” Chloé asked cautiously. 

“Yep.” 

“Oh my gosh,” she threw her arms around Izzy dramatically. “Then can you make sure to do something about Kent’s snapbacks—I keep seeing them on ESPN and if I wasn’t across the fucking country I would _burn_ them—” aaannndd now was time to swoop in on their conversation. 

Kent walked up to where the two of them were splitting some lemon cake from the Starbucks in the same plaza. “What are you two talking about?” 

“Your prick,” Chloé said easily, popping a piece of cake into her mouth. 

Izzy choked on her coffee. “You—” she wheezed, fanning her mouth after the hot liquid scalded her, “—can’t just—oh my gosh! Ow!” Chloé held out her iced tea and Isabelle took several large gulps from it. “Wow—okay. American iced tea is horrible and you—” she glared at Chloé who just shrugged innocently, “—can’t just say stuff like. Blimey. Has she always been like that?” 

Kent nodded dramatically, “It’s been a struggle but you’ll get used to it eventually. She likes to think she’s limited edition but she’s just weird.” 

“Do you want to go shopping or not?” Chloé folded her arms across her chest and huffed. “Because I’ll leave your raggedy ass on the curb—”

“—no you won’t—” 

“—and make sure you keep wearing those disgusting snapbacks—” 

“—you’re the one who wears Juicy Couture—” 

“—I’m trying to do you a favor and you just sit there and insult me. Do you see the shit I put up with?” she turned to Izzy and jabbed a thumb in Kent’s direction. 

“Somehow I think I’m the one whose babysitting,” Izzy said dryly. Her voice was drier than firewood. “Are the two of you always like that or does being in each other’s proximity cause you to be quarrelsome?” 

“She’s annoying.” Kent deadpanned. 

“He’s just an ass.” Chloé offered. 

Izzy laughed and shook her head, “The two of you are children. Who thought it was a good idea to let you spend time together?” 

“Well …” Chloé started off, “It all kind of started when he came to live with my parents in their basement—” she waved her hands dramatically, “—‘cause there was something wrong with his billet family so they couldn’t take him and my brother in immediately. I thought he was an ass at first—” her eyes lit up and she smirked, “Oh. My. Gosh. Did you know he used to have braces? It was the cutest thing. He was so embarrassed by them too—” 

“Was not!” 

“—His sister told me he threatened to pry them off with pliers if the dentist didn’t take them before he moved to Canada. When he first moved to our house, he chewed and spoke weirdly because he thought his teeth were too big after the braces got off—” 

“—You’re not supposed to tell her that!” Kent hissed hotly, trying to clamp a hand over Chloé’s flapping mouth. She licked his palm instead and he tried to wipe it on her cheek. 

“Total dork. He has horrible taste in fashion. His snapbacks—” 

“I like his snapbacks,” Izzy chimed in sweetly. 

“Thank you,” Kent nodded appreciatively before elbowing Chloé harshly. “Why don’t you go and yap into someone else’s ear?” 

“Can’t. They said to go to you.” She retorted cheekily. 

Here was the thing about best friends: you missed them when they weren’t there but when they _were,_ you wondered why the hell you ever wanted them around in the first place. Predictably, Chloé let out a whine. He knew exactly how she was going to act. She always stuck her head into his problems, but grew irritated when he tried to do the same to her. That was Chloé for you—a little too pushy, a little too obsessive, and a little too overwhelming—but it was her eagerness that assured him she still cared. Because at least she was trying. Hell, she was trying a whole lot harder than his own biological family right now. (The horrible Skype session with his mother flashed through his mind at the moment). No matter how much Kent could function without Chloé there, he always found his life was enriched when she annoyed him. 

* * *

Jeff was fairly accommodating to the fact that Chloé showed up with no prior reservations, which came as a surprise to Kent, and set up the guest room for her without much complaint.

“Just don’t get makeup on my pillow sheets,” Jeff said warningly. 

She walked past Jeff and nudged him with her hip. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

It turned out Chloé and Jeff had been texting fairly often for the past two years or so, they were meme buddies as she liked to say, and even rigid Jeff could make exceptions for friends he hadn’t seen in a while. 

Jeff brought out the fancy guest soap and offered to make dinner for the two of them before he went out with Scrappy and the boys. Kent opted to stay in because 1. he didn’t trust Chloé not to blab around a bunch of horny hockey players and 2. wanted to spend more quality time with her. They were going to be on a roadie for three days and Kent would leave Chloé with no one but Izzy for company. He needed to make up for lost time.

Chloé pushed Kent’s feet off the couch to make room for herself. She flopped down, wine glass in one hand, plate of stir fry in the other, and swiped the controller from Kent to pick out her own show on Netflix _._ Kent couldn’t help but smile at the familiarity of the entire scene when she placed her head on his shoulder. 

The last few months had him worried that their friendship fell and broke into irreparable pieces because of all the shit that hit the fan, yet here Chloé was, acting like they always had. She took a piece of shrimp off his plate and he retaliated by draining her wine glass. The thought of Chloé ghosting him, the way her parents and Jack had, sat in his stomach harder than all the shitty Walmart cheesecake they consumed before the pad thai. The post-Jack life was pretty guilt central. He was glad there was little guilt to be felt in regards to Chloé. 

He slid his arm around her waist and waited for the conversation to come—waited for Chloé to ask how he _really_ felt and make him try to explain himself. He watched her dip her shrimp into the wine and make a face at the odd flavor combination. A few minutes of flicking through genre after genre on Netflix trying to find something passed. Descriptions of some of the shows popped up when she inspected them for too long but Chloé flicked on by before Kent could get a grasp of what it was really about. Kent began to put out suggestions. 

“Fuck no!” Kent barked out in a laugh that was a little too big. “We are not watching _Star Trek_ —” 

“You wanted to watch _Up_ earlier, you dweeb,” Chloé replied with a wide grin. 

“Pixar is a cultural icon. We’re not watching your weird indie films—” 

_“Avatar_ then,” she suggested. 

They got comfortable as the logos played on the screen, but Kent kept fidgeting. 

“Is this dumb movie payback?” 

“Are your dumb life decisions payback for treating you like an adult capable of not fucking up his own life constantly?” Chloé replied in the same tone Kent used. 

Kent crossed his arm and gently kicked Chloé’s side. “Hey, I’m not fucking up my life—” 

“You constantly call your ex who wants nothing to do with you,” she began to prattle off, “You’re sitting on a couch with your ex’s little sister. You play for the most homophobic sport on the planet. Need I continue?” 

“Why do you have to be so dramatic about it?” 

“You’re the epitome of dramatic gay. _I’m_ not the dramatic one here,” Chloé retorted with a pointed eye roll. “Kenny, have you considered—I dunno— _talking_ to someone about this?” She sat up and pressed pause, turning fully to Kent. “You’re my best friend and it sort of worries me that you’re hiding the biggest fucking secret of all time and not really dealing with it. Jumping into the big leagues after Jack’s OD is sorta shitty.” 

Kent opened his mouth to retort but she beat him to the punch, “Don’t even bother faking it with me—” she held up a finger and waggled it, “You’re a good liar but I know you, Kenny.” 

“Well, now, I won’t be seeing him until the next season starts,” Kent shrugged trying to seem blase. “Or when I run into him at the NHL awards, I guess. Nothing to worry about here.” 

Chloé didn’t say anything for a moment before suggesting enthusiastically, “Now’s a good chance to get that ‘me time’. You can really develop your hockey and make new friends out here. I think Vegas is a good place for you.” 

“You think so? I think you’re just trying to get rid of me.” He meant for that to be teasing but it sounded more desperate than anything else.

“Darling, you’ve always had me—since the day you waltzed into my life and said to my father, ‘I don’t think Bad Kent has the same ring to it.’ You’re not going to get rid of me now, even if you wanted to,” she murmured, looking wistful. 

Ken smiled and pulled Chloé down. She flopped on him with a loud oof. He wrapped her up with his arms and legs, squeezing her in a weird and uncomfortable hug. She didn’t squirm and just accepted her fate, patting his cheek affectionately. 

“I love you too. Now, sit through this glorious film and enjoy every second of it,” Chloé tried to say with a straight face, but then cracked up on the last few seconds. They were both too immature to watch half-naked blue aliens without making at least three sexual innuendos. 

When the opening scene came on, he couldn’t help but groan. Chloé tickled his knee, holding his foot so he couldn’t get away. He laughed harder than he ever managed since before season. 

“I give! I giiivee!” he yelled, “I’ll watch this shitty thing.”

* * *

“This better be worth it,” Kent said when Chloé pulled up to their destination. His legs were cramped and he smelled like shit and he wanted beer. She was dressed in sweats and Kent realized that Chloé barefaced was practically unrecognizable to the public. “Because the knowledge that _your_ cooking is enough to make any man want to starve.”

He continued to complain even as Chloé loaded their shopping cart with sweet potatoes, regular potatoes because potlucks weren’t potlucks without _latkes_ and yeast for _challah_ (“Papa said Jewish people only really eat this for special occasions and since this is a very special day, indeed, I thought I’d try my hand at making it”). Mentally, he filed away the note to have Jeff supervise all of her cooking endeavours. For god’s sake, she even bought marinated short ribs for them to grill. Did either of them know how to grill? Did they even have a grill?

Chloé handed money over to an elderly man working behind the register. “We’re making dishes for a Thanksgiving potluck,” she said sheepishly when the man raised an eyebrow at the ungodly amount of potatoes in the cart. “Sweet potato casserole.” 

“Young lady, are you aware that you grabbed purple sweet potatoes? I’m not so sure those go into a casserole. And you bought lemon flavored marshmallows,” the employee pointed out wryly. 

Blinking owlishly, Chloé put the ingredients back into her cart, thanked the cashier, and swapped out the purple yams for regular sweet potatoes in the produce aisle. When they finally left the grocery store, Kent breathed a sigh of relief. Who knew grocery shopping was so stressful. 

Thanksgiving was in two days but Kent had a game tomorrow so they needed to go shopping today. Chloé’s visit had been fun in a strange, facemask-filled, pedicure-getting, takeout-eating, sort of way. Her companionship was almost a welcome reprieve from the overwhelming machoness he surrounded himself with. Alexei and Jeff were cuddly and soft in their own ways but they were still, at the end of the day, large hockey players.

“Do you even know how to cook?” Kent asked as he pulled up to their driveway. 

Chloé stared at him and scratched her head, “Don’t you?” 

“No—that’s why I’m asking you.” 

“I—” 

“What?” 

Kent sighed and pulled the key out of the ignition. “I don’t know how to cook.” 

“I thought you said you knew—” 

“When did I ever say that I knew—” He slammed the car door hard. 

“—how the hell do you feed yourself then? Does Jeff do all the cooking—” 

“—he’s always done all the—” 

“You are a grown ass man and you can’t—” 

“—Pot and kettle!” 

“Oh my god.” Chloé opened the trunk of their car. “Kenny?” 

He locked his car. “What?” 

“We forgot the groceries at Albertsons.” 

When Kent got home, he made sure to Google: 

* * *

The Aces won their game the night before Thanksgiving and, instead of celebrating with some of the younger guys, Kent opted to go home in order to prepare the ingredients for the team dinner tomorrow. Most of the older guys would celebrate with their families, as expected, but the others who didn’t have family in the area would gather at Blitzer’s house. 

He came home exhausted but resolved to at least cut the _six_ pounds of sweet potatoes because Chloé sure as hell wasn’t going to—she had the detrimental flaw of procrastinating until the last minute possible and then some. Placing his keys in the mounted key holder by the door, he shrugged off his coat and placed it on the rack.

“Do you think we should start making some of the dishes now?” Kent wrinkled his nose when Chloé haphazardly put her shoes near the shoe rack for guests. It didn’t even land on the beams. 

Chloé shrugged, “Can’t we just make them tomorrow morning?” 

“Yeah, but we should get started on them tonight.” He pointed out. “Now where’s the cookbook for these dishes?” 

Chloé’s eyes widened and she made a confused gesture with her hands. “Don’t you just stick it in the oven with a bunch of sugar?” 

“... You mean you don’t know what to do.” He deadpanned. 

She huffed defensively which made her Quebcois accent more pronounced, “Papa makes this stuff every year and all I see him do is stick them in a pan, mash it up, add sugar and voila! You have diabetes in a casserole dish. I’m not an idiot. I’m sure we can figure out how to make it ourselves without the use of a recipe. How hard could it be?” 

It turned out to be incredibly hard because they mixed up the salt with the sugar and set the oven temperature on a temperature that was too high—which burnt the brown butter pecan topping to a total crisp. When they pulled the dish out of the smoking oven, several fire alarms went off and Kent spent the better part of ten minutes airing out the entire apartment while Chloé fanned the smoke detectors. 

“If we don’t fix this shit soon,” Kent wheezed, tossing the ruined casserole dish into the trashcan, “Jeff is going to have a fucking heart attack. I misplaced one of his wine glasses and he was going to launch himself out of the house.” 

Chloé winced, prodding at the ruined pan with a fork. “It can’t be that bad,” she muttered, clearly delusional from the smoke inhalation. “It’s one pan. We’ll just buy him a new one later.” 

But she didn’t argue any further and tossed all the contents of their little cooking experiment down the trash chute. Then she pulled out a vintage ‘75 Lafite wine bottle from Jeff’s extensive collection (normally they might have opted for straight tequila but Jeff was sort of pretentious in his alcohol selections and neither of them were willing to test fate by drinking his blended 40 year old malt whiskey), put on _Grey’s Anatomy_ , and then poured them both generous glasses of savory red. 

McDreamy was telling Meredith that he loved her when Kent interrupted the episode and said, “So, let me get this straight—” 

“Nothing about you is straight,” She corrected reflexively and sipped her wine. Kent ignored her and went on. 

“You’re here because you _lied_ to your parents about staying in New York—” 

“—I _was_ in New York for a day of my Thanksgiving break—” 

“—refuse to see your brother after he nearly died and now you’re here avoiding Zimmermann family drama, even though you know you’re going to have to deal with it eventually—” 

“I told you I’m here for you—” 

Kent raised a knowing eyebrow. “That might be true but I know you also love the fact that you don’t have to deal with a confrontation with your family.” 

“What’s the point of all this?” she swirled her wine, watching as the liquid left sheer tracks on the side of the glass.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Why’s it more important that you visit me than your brother who's in rehab? Or see your parents who’re dealing with a kid who tried to OD?” 

“Jack will be fine—” she waved him off in the nonchalant manner that alerted Kent to the fact that Jack’s level of fineness was relatively subjective. 

He blinked and stopped, seeing Jack’s smiling face. Then he blinked again and saw Jack dying on the bathroom floor. By the time he pulled himself out of it, he missed half of what Chloé said. 

When she turned her head the TV screen made her eyes appear light at this particular angle so the worrisome look was even more haunting, “I visited Jack a lot in rehab,” she rolled her eyes, “I know a lot of people think I don’t care but I do. I’m not going to blab about my problems because it just makes his life more difficult. I don’t think it’s wrong to also want to check up on you—”

“You didn’t think your family would be upset—”

“Fuck what they think,” she snorted. “Jack’s not the only one who had to deal with shit hitting the fan. It’s hardly fair for us to accommodate him forever at our own expenses.” A sad shadow passed over her face momentarily before dissipating entirely. “You’ve been dealing with your boyfriend shutting you out after he nearly died and wanting to never have anything to do with you as if you weren’t the one who started CPR—” she sighed, “I just wanted to check up on you.” 

Kent began haltingly, a soft edge to his voice, “Chloé—” 

“No more,” she hushed. “Let’s watch _Greys.”_ She placed her hand on his, “Let’s not talk about Jack and enjoy it..”

Kent didn’t tell her that every time he closed his eyes he saw a blue face, a seizing body, vomit and foam dribbling out of Jack’s mouth. He didn’t tell her he was sure Jack died more than once on the trip to the hospital, and how he’d definitely died twice after being admitted. He hadn’t needed to because she had been there. She had screamed and screamed so loudly, sobbing into the phone as she hysterically told the 911 operator what happened. 

“Jack?” She had sobbed softly. “Jack? Jack, wake up! Jack, wake up. Jack, can you hear me? I love you Jack.”

Part of Kent thought maybe he could use a few pills to calm himself down—maybe Chloé could too judging from the way she kept word vomiting—because it was so hard to focus right now. He had considered a therapist until he had heard guys during training camp chirping about the crazies and then Jeff unloaded the drama with Coach onto him. 

He had no room for therapy in his life. 

* * *

On Thanksgiving Day Kent woke up to the sound of Jeff cooking in the kitchen. 

“Hey—” he saw Jeff kneading some dough for the challah bread Chloé wanted to make, “You don’t need to do that.” 

“I know,” Jeff shrugged. “But I’m assuming that you and Princess, who hasn’t woken up yet, were going to make me do all the cooking.” Jeff dusted the countertop with more flour and continued kneading, “So I’ll do all the cooking and you keep your girl from being her in my kitchen.”

Kent winced at the words. “She’s not my girl.”

“—she flew halfway across the country to see you, hasn’t gone to a single nightclub, casino or bar, and willingly buys you those uglyass snapbacks. Whatever it is, she’s your girl—dumbass,” Jeff leaned over the kitchen island and knocked Kent on the head with the rolling pin. 

So that’s how the day started. Jeff agreed to mostly do all the work on the sweet potato casserole, challah, and Korean-style short ribs while Kent and Chloé delicately danced around him. 

“You two are the worst,” Jeff announced when Chloé dropped another sweet potato onto the floor. She and Kent were failing miserably at the, admittedly, small task they had been given: wash and peel the potatoes. “How did you two survive this long? I’ve seen little girls with Easy-Bake ovens cook better than you.” 

Kent could see the edge of annoyance creep into Jeff’s face. It was tucked away amongst the foliage but it was there. Jeff’s face screamed, “If you break my kitchen, I will kill you.”

“To be fair,” Kent defended, “I spent most of my adolescence away from my parents. I wasn’t lucky enough to stay at home for high school.” He whirled around and asked Chloé, “What’s your excuse?”

“My father always did the cooking,” she replied innocuously. 

“You—” Jeff pointed his wooden spoon at Kent, “—are useless and you—” he waved it at Chloé, “—are spoiled. I have a useless lug and a spoiled brat in my kitchen.” He sighed heavily. 

Earlier, Kent learned that Jeff had played Division I NCAA hockey at Notre Dame for a year, after declining a contract for the Edmonton Oilers, mostly at the behest of his parents who insisted he needed a college degree. It turned out college wasn’t Jeff’s thing. Too much studying and not enough hockey. But the one thing Jeff had gotten out of college was the ability to clean and cook for himself. 

“Hey! Cooking is hard,” she whined. 

“Most of this shit is common sense,” Jeff frowned as Chloé diced up the sweet potatoes into unequal slices. Then the frown grew even deeper when she got a bit of the potato skin on the countertop. Kent watched as Jeff hovered around her and recut the potatoes when her back was turned to wash her hands. 

While Jeff secretly fixed all of Chloé’s culinary mistakes, Kent grabbed a bottle of dry white wine from the top cabinet. It wasn’t often that they drank fine aged liquor like the Gaja Costa Russi that Jeff received in the mail as a twenty first birthday gift from his WASP-ish extended relatives but Thanksgiving was a good enough day to pop it out. He poured two glasses and offered one to Chloé. She took it gracefully. 

Jeff raised an eyebrow at the wine glasses and rolled his eyes. He poured himself one, drank it whole and then placed the sweet potatoes onto the aluminum foil lined baking tray. 

“Okay, no,” Jeff corrected as Kent began to dice the onions. “You cut this way,” he readjusted Kent’s fingertips so they weren’t so dangerously close to the blade, “because you’re gonna cut off your finger.” 

“You can always sew it back on,” Chloé commented cheerfully. “It’s not like missing a finger or two will affect your hockey.”

They took away the knives from her soon after. 

“I hate this,” he said softly. 

Chloé was mixing the brown sugar with flour and looked up over her shoulder and mane of long silky hair. Her face was twisted in bewilderment. “Hate what?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jeff still engrossed in marinating the mat. 

There was some kind of breaking point in everybody, and it felt like tiny insects had been slowly eating him from the inside out. In theory, maybe he ought to have something profound to say about their argument, the misguided resentment bubbling over in the face of overwhelming panic, but in reality he just flumbed with his words until she finally looked him in the eye.

“I hate this,” he flailed his limbs around, and slumped over on the counter. “I hate always being reminded of Jack. I feel like I can’t escape and I see him all the time—on the floor—and it’s just hard because you kept reminding me—I hate we’re both not talking with our families—”

She snapped her head up, “You’re not talking to your family?”

“Clearly.” 

“Yikes.” She winced. 

“I also hate that I’m kinda a poor substitute for your parents and Jack.” 

He knew that she could have been having a whole twelve course meal, courtesy of her Michelin-star chef Aunt and very skilled grandparents, with her entire extended family but instead she was with him. 

“I don’t mind,” Chloé said, and Kent knew she meant it because she didn't say things she didn’t mean. Not when it counted. “I’m just happy I have you here, really.” She steepled her fingers, “Now, you’re going to cut up all these pears.”

“You’re going to make me dice?” Kent asked, faux-scandalized, and Chloé shoved him. 

The pears were too slippery for him to dice properly because they’d been peeled and Kent ended up smashing more than a few of them. That left Jeff to kick both of them out of the kitchen and Kent and Chloé ended up spending most of the afternoon trying to find Jeff the best seats for the next Clippers’ game.

The universe had a sense of humor, and Kent knew that sometimes he was bound to be the butt of its joke. So it was fitting, somehow, that he found himself crouched over his laptop with an extremely loud girl chattering in his ear, fingers still sort of sore from all the potato peeling and frowning at Chloé—who was being majorly unhelpful—when he said it. It was a moment of real clarity, in the middle of the giggling and swearing and apologizing to Jeff. 

“You are,” Kent said savagely, making the best dagger eyes he could muster in Chloé’s direction as she added a rose-gold Rolex that would go well with Jeff’s skin tone apparently to their shopping cart, “So lucky that I would go to the end of the world for you.”

Kent opened the door. 

All heads turned toward him. 

He stood there slack-jawed for several seconds and then exclaimed, “The fuck?”

“Sup, rookie,” called Blitzer. He pushed past Kent, pulled out a blue apron with stains on it, a picture of a turkey and the words “This guy loves pumpkin pie” written beneath it. Christ, where the fuck had he even found that? Blitzer waved and said, “Wow, your kitchen looks brand new. Are you sure Jeff cooks?”

Kent blinked rapidly. “What the hell are you all doing here?”

Scrappy came up and placed a bag in his arms. It was steaming from holding several casserole dishes. “Happy Thanksgiving with you.”

“Uhhh, aren’t we supposed to do this at Blitzer’s home?” Kent asked, following Scrappy into the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Scrappy had taken to unloading the contents of the refrigerator. “Yep,” Scrappy agreed. Besides Blitzer, Matty was also making use of Jeff’s kitchen—the man was going to have a conniption when he came out of the shower. “But Blitzer’s oven doesn’t work so we’re here. We volunteered Swoops’ home.” 

“Dude,” Kent hissed, “Why would you do that to Swoops? He’s going to go ballistic. That fridge—” Kent pointed at the refrigerator that was kept organized with military precision, “—is his baby!”

Somehow, the entire team—the ones who weren’t with their families—managed to ignore him and they whipped out bowls of mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, some stuffing. Now that Kent was paying attention, he saw Sully unload a large turkey onto the kitchen island. 

Oh, there was no going back from all the turkey juice dripping onto the floor. Poor Jeff. 

In the living room, he found Thrasher, Fishstick and Griffin making themselves comfortable in Jeff's extensive collection of beanbags. He was even more baffled at how easily they settled into the apartment, fucking around on Jeff’s PS3 and screaming at the TV. 

“Why the fuck did you guys decide to settle on Jeff’s apartment?’ Kent asked.

Scrappy, meanwhile, looked a little guilty. “I’m, uh. I … sort of suggested it as a joke and they rolled with it.” 

Kent turned around to glare at the others. “You guys know what Jeff’s like! Remember that one time Matty accidentally used Jeff’s deodorant?” 

From the kitchen, Sully called out, “He’s gonna have to suck it up!”

“Swoops should have thought about it before giving me a key to his house,” Scrappy yelped. “He was okay with us having the team dinner for Canadian Thanksgiving here last month.”

“Scrappy, that was because we told him three weeks in advance and had to beg. Do you think Jeff Troy would be keen on giving us free access to his living space and precious kitchen?” Kent hissed. “Do you remember that one time you didn’t use a coaster? Do you want to repeat that time? Dude, he’s gonna blow his head and I’m going to have to find another leftwinger.” 

The implication of the words dawned on Scrappy’s face and he instantly paled. Kent turned around to check on what was happening in the kitchen. Chloé was chatting along nicely with Sully about her plans. 

“Dreadful, you know, as per usual,” she began loftily, “but I suppose I’m quite fortunate to have Jeff here, Nathan. Kent’s really lucky to have someone wait on him hand and foot all day long.”

“I didn’t realize you and Parser were so close,” Sully commented lightly. 

She lied, “Oh, well, my family doesn’t celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving so my parents are working right now. I thought it’d be a good opportunity to see Vegas and catch up with an old friend.” 

Kent took that opportunity to go to his room and take a call, seeing as everyone else was occupied. In New York, he knew his mother and sister and everyone else remotely related to them were going to have Thanksgiving dinner together. He pulled up text messages from his phone and saw that Liv texted him: 

_from:_ **Liv** (Thurs, Nov 26, 6:07 am) 

_Happy Thanksgiving Kenny! We miss you lots :((( Enjoy your day and send me pictures of the food you’re eating. Love you!!!_

Now, instead of his family, he had an apartment full of rowdy teammates who were apparently making a Thanksgiving dinner from scratch. 

He slumped down against the bathroom sink, wrapped his arms around his knees, and buried his face in them. Even though these guys were his friends, he didn’t want to go out and deal with them because it reminded him that his parents were ignoring him. He wanted to stay in the bathroom, eat ice cream or Chinese takeout and listen to Britney all day long. But he willed himself to at least call his sister. 

The phone rang two times before Liv picked up, “Hello?” 

“Happy Thanksgiving, Livvy,” he croaked.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Kenny!” She replied, significantly more cheerful. “How did you like your surprise?”

“Who? Chloé? She’s been a pain in the ass.” 

“You liked it then,” Liv chuckled. “We miss you here—it’s not the same without you. There’s no one for Nana to yell at, for mixing up salt with the sugar.” 

He snorted, “I don’t miss her whacking me with her spoon. That woman is mean.” 

“Did you get the pie in the mail?” 

“Yep, we’re heating it up right now.” 

“We?” 

He cleared his throat and said tentatively, “I—err—some of the guys who don’t have wives or kids, the younger ones, made a plan to have Thanksgiving dinner together. We were going to have it at Blitzer’s place, but his oven is broken soo…” 

“Oh?” She groaned, “Kent, do you know the first thing about hosting a dinner? Have you got enough plates—” 

“It can’t be that hard. Everyone brought something and they’re gonna cook the turkey soon enough. Besides, some of the guys actually know how to cook.” 

“Alright,” she sounded unconvinced before asking, “Do you wanna talk to Grandpa Joe?”

“No—I—” 

“—here, I’ll put them on the phone—” 

“Liv!” 

“Not Liv, son,” a deep, low voice drawled. 

“Hi, Gramps,” Kent coughed. 

“Don’t you ‘hi, Gramps’ me, young man,” Grandpa Joe groused. “I watched your game a few days ago. What the hell was that? I bring my friends over to brag about my grandson and he gets his ass handed back to him. Boy, if that wasn’t the saddest thing I’ve ever seen… I thought I was going to die.” 

“Whatever you say, old man,” Kent teased, enjoying the familiar sound of his cantankerous grandfather complaining about being in his dotage now that he was sixty. “We all know you’re going to live forever and if you do die, you’re going to come back and haunt us.” 

“Ha! You got that straight.” Grandpa Joe’s voice lowered significantly and he whispered knowingly. “So, tell me, are you really going out with that girl?” 

Kent looked at his phone, befuddled, “What girl?”

Grandpa scoffed and asked eagerly, “The one you’re always spending time with! With the legs!” 

“Izzy…?” 

“Whatever her name is! Tell me, you seeing her?” 

“What? No!” Kent rubbed his temples.

“Don’t lie to me! I’m not your Mama—is that why you got mad at her? Because she kept pryin’? I told that girl that who a man sleeps with is none of his mother’s business—”

“—It’s none of your business either.” Kent refuted. 

Grandpa cackled loudly into the other end of the phone, “I don’t care who you’re sleeping with as long as you don’t make me a great-grandfather before I’ve officially become a senior citizen. I just wanna know if you’re havin’ fun.” 

“I am having fun. I’m playing hockey.” 

“Boy,” Grandpa argued and Kent began to pace around the perimeter of his bathroom, “I know that. But we’re sure as hell not gonna talk about hockey, are we? I know all there is to know—they could replace me with Don Cherry and it wouldn’t make a difference!” 

Now, that would be a sight: Grandpa Joe wearing Don Cherry’s godforsaken suits and commenting on players’ stats on live television. It would be a horrible idea, because Kent was sure that Grandpa would smoke in front of the cameras and then grumble about how the younger generation doesn’t appreciate the physical demands of hockey. They just wanted to play video games. 

He groaned, feeling like there was something crawling up and down his skin. “I’m not going to talk about my sex life with you—”

Grandpa whined, “But I’m your favorite. I don’t want details. Just tell me that you’re havin’ a life outside of that damn sport!” 

“You’re the one who got me into hockey in the first place, Gramps!” 

“Just tell me that you’re livin’ life, kid.” Grandpa sighed, “Youth really is wasted on the young.” They were quiet for a few moments before Grandpa told him forthrightly, “It would be very sad if your sixty-year-old gramps is having more sex than you—” 

Kent groaned, unable to get that image out of his head. “Ew—that’s fucking disgusting—”

Blessedly, at that moment, someone knocked on his bathroom door. “Kenny?” Chloé called through it, thank god for her perfect timing, “Your friend’s here. You wanna come out and greet her?” 

“Okay,” Kent looked up and placed a hand over the speaker of his phone when Chloé opened the bathroom door and peered down at him quizzically. “I’m talking to my family, right now,” he whispered and she nodded understandingly, closing the door behind her. Then he returned to addressing his grandfather, “Look—I’m hosting a dinner and I’ve got to go—”

Grandpa sniffed, “Alright, kid. Make sure to eat a lot and get nice and fat off the dinner—”

“Yes, sir.” 

“—and your mother said to tell you to eat your vegetables, so eat your vegetables—”

“Of course, sir.” 

“—and don’t forget to say grace! You may live in a heathen town, but thank the lord for your good looks—” Grandpa laughed, “And me of course.” 

“Got it, sir. Happy Thanksgiving, Gramps.” 

“Alright, Liv says I’m monopolizing your time,” Grandpa clicked his tongue, “Lord, she goes off to that hippie college and comes back thinking she’s smarter than everyone else with her big words—” there was the sound of vague arguing before Kent heard Liv’s voice again. 

“We’re about to start dinner here, so I gotta go Kenny,” she said apologetically, “Go hang out with your friends. Love you!” 

“Love you too.” 

Kent sighed, got up, left the bathroom and closed the door behind him. When he opened his bedroom door, all he could really see was the bright red top Chloé put on, but the statuesque singer’s voice was gentle when she asked, “You alright, darling? Looking a bit peaky.”

Kent sighed again, “Yeah.” 

They went out into the kitchen. 

“How’s your family?” Chloé asked.

Thrasher and Sully were being scolded by Jeff for mixing up the carefully organized knives and cutlery, so Kent and Chloé decided to move into the living room. When Fishstick and Thrasher scooted over on the couch to make room, Kent just slumped into his spot and rubbed his hand over his face. “Yeah, my gramps called to tell me to have a Happy Thanksgiving and my mom told me to eat my vegetables. No problem.”

Chloé made a noise of sympathy, “Must suck not to be near family, right now. I know how much you love your folks.”

“Yeah,” He was saying that a lot. He peered at the assembled Aces. “Seriously, you guys. We have to find a way to apologize to Jeff for this—I just saw him and he looked sadder than last month when he lost a bet and had to be a vegetarian for a week.” 

A smack on the back of the head took him by surprise. He yelped and twisted to see Jeff looking down at him like a disappointed parent. “You think I’m so neurotic that I wouldn’t let them use my house? Like some grade-A asshole?”

“Yes,” the rest of the Aces chorused from the couch. 

Jeff snorted, “You two—” he glared openly at Kent and Chloé, “—owe me a trip to Hawaii after all the shit you’ve put me through.” He walked away from them, ready to return to the kitchen but not before grumbling about his high blood pressure levels.

Matty asked, “You didn’t really think we’d do you the service of sending a text and miss the look on Jeff’s face?” Matty was the person who was the most obsessed with irritating Jeff, on a fundamental basis that Jeff was an uptight stick-in-the-mud most of the time. “It was comedy gold when he found the turkey on the counter!”

“I hate you all,” Jeff declared when he got back from the kitchen. “Turkey will be ready in about forty minutes—I still can’t believe you put a half-cooked turkey onto my counter.” The words Jeff uttered seemed venomous but the way he looked at the rest of the team said otherwise. “I should kick you all out just for that.”

“Hey!” Matty cried out. “We were making the turkey and his—” he jabbed a thumb in Blitzer’s direction, “—fucking oven broke.” 

“I’m still going to kick you all out. There’s turkey grease on my counter.” Jeff threatened lightly. 

Matty faked a gasp. “Swoops, are you saying that you don’t want to eat Scrappy’s pie?” 

Scrappy poked his head out of the kitchen. “You aren’t going to eat my pie? But I worked so hard on it. I texted my moms, like, four million times about the crust. What do you mean, you aren’t going to eat my pie?”

Jeff threw his hands up. “I still hate you all.” 

Forty minutes later, Jeff and Sully raided the top cupboards for the nice plates, forks, spoons and knives, which turned out to be too fine for a bunch of hockey players to be trusted with so Jeff decided to break out a pack of paper plates and plastic cutlery. “My silverware is for esteemed guests only,” Jeff sniffed, when the others protested to not using the nice china. “You lugheads are going to scratch up my plates.” 

Kent pulled up his seat and commented, “He doesn’t even let _me_ use those plates. He’s saving those plates for when he has to host the First Lady.” 

The full menu turned out to be mashed potatoes, biscuits, banana bread pudding, sourdough stuffing, green bean casserole, pitchers of gravy and cranberry sauce loaves of challah bread, a tray of slightly burned sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, a turkey, and freshly grilled shortribs. The pumpkin pie was Scrappy’s creation, biscuits and banana bread pudding from Thrasher and Sully respectively, Fishstick brought the stuffing, Blitzer made the sauces which were his mother’s recipe apparently, and the green bean casserole’s ingredients were contributed by Griffin who could not cook. Mashed potatoes were Matty’s because he couldn’t be trusted with anything else. The rest, challah, sweet potato casserole and shortribs, were courtesy of Jeff. Chloé, even though she hadn’t really contributed to much of the cooking, watched Kent take a first bite of both. 

“It’s good,” he said, marshmallows making his lips sticky. 

Chloé lit up and dug into her own plate. “Thanks for cooking, Jeff.” She said cheerfully, throwing her arms around him. 

“Hhhng,” Jeff grunted in return, putting hot sauce on his short ribs and shrugging her off. 

They couldn’t all cram themselves into Jeff’s dining room, which was big enough for five people, maybe six, but ten extremely large hockey players really pushed it. So they settled on having all the food on the kitchen counters and having people serve themselves individually and sit wherever they wanted to. Eventually most of them settled on the living room, chirping Jeff about how uncomfortable his couch was. 

“My mom gave it to me. I can’t throw it away,” Jeff refuted as he pulled more beanbag chairs out of the closet. 

It was cramped and claustrophobic. The guys talked and Chloé chattered ceaselessly about old stories of Kent from the Q, but he didn’t say much. He just ate. They all seemed fine with that. Kent went back for seconds and didn’t miss the way Jeff loaded his plate with more potatoes. “You need to eat more,” Jeff plopped a large spoonful of the stuffing onto the edge of his plate, careful to keep it away from the sweet potatoes. “You’re too skinny now.” 

Griffin brought the wine—four bottles of it—courtesy of the vineyard his family owns in California and Kent drank until he was warm and flushed. He got drawn into a conversation with Griffin about the Macy’s Parade and life in SoCal versus the East Coast, and suddenly an hour passed. Kent found that the awful miasma of loneliness that had been clinging to him since the phone call with Liv and Gramps was beginning to fade away. It wasn’t just the wine that was making him feel warm. It was the voices around him, the familiar smell of Blitzer’s fancy-ass cologne, the taste of the homemade pumpkin pie, Chloé's body weight dipping the large beanbag chair Kent was currently sitting on and Swoops sitting on the floor nearby, his leg brushing against Kent’s knee every now and then. 

It was less formal than he was used to and lacked the roasted suckling pig his mom always made, as well as the obligatory brussel sprouts he hated, but it was good. It was so good and made even better when Chloé decided to play Christmas music. He was so glad she was here—his family always played Christmas music during Thanksgiving. 

Kent had thought he didn’t want people from before the draft around, but really he had been desperate for it. Vegas was wonderful, in so many ways, but the city was made so much better knowing Chloé had willingly flown out to see him. Keeping Vegas and the East Coast separate had so damn taxing. 

Back in the real world, Griffin reached past Fishstick to smack Kent on the head for hating on Michael Buble’s Christmas songs. Kent laughed. 

The doorbell rang. 

“Got it,” Chloé said, putting her plate aside and getting up. “Are we expecting anyone?” 

Kent shrugged, sipping his wine. “Maybe it’s the rest of the team?” 

“It better not me,” Jeff groused worriedly. “Nobody’s gonna fit in here, and the food’s almost gone—” 

Kent could smell Jeff on the verge of another breakdown because Jeff hated not having enough food for people too so he patted his friend reassuringly. “Probably just Izzy coming by to say hello. She said she was celebrating with her model friends and would try to drop.” 

But it wasn’t Izzy. He heard several people come into the room, there were high-pitched squeals, and a very familiar voice asked. “Is food gone? We see on Twitter and go here instead. Bring medovik—know Kenny like medovik.” 

Kent turned around and Alexei was standing there, jacket unzipped and a huge cake box in his hands. Alexei grinned and the heads of two small girls popped out behind his legs. They were Smirnov’s girls. Kent only managed a, “Why…”

Alexei put down his cake on the counter and came over to pat Kent affectionately on the cheek, “We have dinner and see on Twitter team dinner. Decide nicer to have dessert here. Is okay? Know you like honey cake. Big sweet tooth. Many cavities.” 

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Kent said softly. He wiggled his fingers in greeting at Smirnov’s girls, who quickly took to sitting on the beanbag chairs and playing with Chloé’s hair. “Thanks for the cake, dude. Dunno why you’d want to spend the rest of your Thanksgiving with these assholes.” 

“We feed him and Jeff and this is the thanks we get,” Scrappy complained good-naturedly. “You guys aren’t getting anymore pie!”

“I get pie right?” Smirnov asked gruffly. 

“You can get all the pie you want, sweetheart.” 

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” Smirnov demanded. “Wife and girls here.”

Scrappy nodded sagely, his eyes twinkling, “Alright—alright—” he held his hands up, “—don’t want your wife knowing about your sidepiece—”

“Not sidepiece—” 

“Mistress … lover …” 

As Scrappy and Smirnov argued, Kent’s eyes focused on Alexei. He grabbed the man’s sleeve and said softly, cheeks pink from the wine. “Thanks for coming. Means a lot, man.” 

“Would not miss this for world,” Alexei’s voice was firm but gentle. 

“Yeah.” 

“Hmmm…” Alexei patted his shoulder. “Now, I eat pie.”

“I—” Kent moved to go to the kitchen, “I’ll cut you a slice.” 

Scrappy raised his wine glass and splashed on Jeff, “Best pie in the world.

“Goddammit, Xavier.” Jeff growled, wiping at himself with a napkin. 

“Oooohh,” the other players let out. Scrappy was only ever called by his first name when he was in trouble. 

Alexei put his hand on Kent’s nape and gave him a slight squeeze. It was a gesture Alexei developed, when Jeff pointed out that Kent needed a massage because he kept all his stress in his neck and shoulders, in order to relax him. “Still food? Or greedy North Americans eat everything.” 

“Fuck you, Russian,” Scrappy said. “You don’t get any pie.”

Alexei came back with a plate piled high. Before Alexei could open his mouth to ask where he should sit, Matty beat Kent to the punch and scooted his beanbag chair over. Tater thanked him and took the offered spot between Matty and Thrasher. 

The conversation around them resumed and there were several groans when Chloé came back from her private phone call to play a French movie. “There are subtitles, you heathens,” she seethed when Kent pulled the remote from her hands. “Hey—! Give that back—” she leaned over her beanbag chair to grabble for the remote.

Kent won in the end. “No one wants to read subtitles.” 

“Just admit you can’t read.” She muttered but acquiesced to Kent playing _Fight Club._ At some point, Chloé abandoned her own beanbag chair and slid next to Kent, pulling him closer. She let her head fall onto his shoulder and no one batted an eye. 

After a while, Kent tilted his head down so he was speaking into Chloé’s ear, “I’m sorry if I don’t appreciate you more,” he apologized quietly. She was chewing on a challah bread roll and turned to him, cheeks full of food. Kent continued, “But I do appreciate you. I like having you here. This—this means a lot to me. Thank you for coming out.” 

She patted his cheek absentmindedly, fingers sticky from food. “I know you do, _mon cheri._ You never mean to hurt people.”

“I’m sorry,” Kent managed.

Chloé rubbed his shoulder. “Don’t fret too much, darling. You’ve done a lot by letting me claim sanctuary here and I know you would’ve done the same for me.” 

“I can’t believe Liv sent you to babysit,” Kent complained. “It’s sweet, but damn. I would’ve been fine on my own. I’m an adult now.” 

“I know,” Chloé kissed his cheek. “But that doesn’t mean you should be without family. You have me and the team. We’re just trying to take care of you.”

Kent nodded and slung his arm around her shoulders, smiling when she laced her fingers through his and drunk enough to ignore the eyebrow waggling from Matty and Thrasher and the frown from Alexei. 

Chloé murmured into his neck, “Happy Thanksgiving, Kenny.”


End file.
